


Appearances

by asocialconstruct



Series: Appearances [1]
Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Cain is a terrible boyfriend, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Family Drama, Feelings, Homophobia, M/M, OFC warning, Politics, cursing, let's not ever talk about feelings, no seriously I'm sorry about the OFCs, so many feelings, they're really not that bad I promise, trolololol, wait is that a joke at the end?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 06:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asocialconstruct/pseuds/asocialconstruct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU futurefic set after the presumable end of the series and after the war. Cain and Abel are discharged, Abel goes home to Earth, Cain goes home to the colonies. Cain shows up on Abel's doorstep after a while and feelings ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be 1500 words of fluffy vacation smexing, but then there were some feelings, and things just kept going. Alternating POVs are marked at the beginning of each section, and hopefully the name changes aren’t too confusing. Ethan = Abel, Sacha = Cain.

February 8 

Form DD 214 Enlisted Record and Report of Separation 

Honorable Discharge

_Task names Cain and Abel.  Date of separation February 8_

_  
_

* * *

 

February 12  

_Hi Cain, this is Abel.  We didn’t talk much the day you left, and I just wanted to leave my number in case you, um, in case—anyway, my number is—_

 

* * *

 

July 30  

_Cain, it’s Abel.  I’m moving to a new apartment.  Fleet has my address.  If you’re ever in town, maybe we can catch up.  Hope you’re okay._

 

* * *

 

November 29  

_Cain, this is Eth—this is Abel.  Fleet got our mail mixed up, they sent me some of your things.  It looks like mostly just veteran’s administration paperwork, but, uh, I didn’t open any of it.  I can send it to you if you, um, if you let me know where you are.  If you want.  Or I can just get rid of it.  Anyway, let me know what I should do.  My number is—well, you know how to find me.  I’ll—anyway, bye._

 

* * *

 

February 15  

_It’s Abel.  I was just—uh.  It’s been a while and um.  I thought.  Um.  I have some vacation time coming up, and I thought, if you wanted, we could get together and, um, catch up.  If you wanted._

 

* * *

 

April 20  

_Cain, this is Abel.  I ran into Deimos at the VA, I guess Fleet got him a job here.  He asked if I’d heard from you.  He, um, gave me his number in case, uh, in case I heard from you first.  Um.  Anyway.  Call me if you want his number.  Bye._

 


	2. Chapter 2

May 29

**Cain**

He rang the buzzer, and rang again, shifting the sharp strap of his duffel to his other shoulder.  Fuck.  Just his luck if Abel wasn’t home, but where the fuck else would he be at this hour on a weeknight?  Sacha half turned to scowl at a couple passing behind him.  

He shifted on the doorstep, uncomfortable in the soft light.  Neighbors would probably call the cops if he stood here much longer, if they hadn’t already.  Fuck.  He gave the bell one more irritated punch.  Abel was probably out at some party or fundraiser for his father, important now that they were discharged.  It’d been stupid to come here in the first place, but he didn’t have anywhere else he wanted to be anymore.

The door whispered open just as he was turning away.

“Cain?”  Abel asked from the doorway.  Blond hair standing up all over, sleepy dark eyes reflecting the lights.  Sacha gave him a grin over his shoulder, relieved he wouldn’t have to call Deimos for a place to stay tonight, and turned around.

He caught Abel by the hair and pulled him in for a kiss.  Meant it to be quick, but fuck, it had been months and Abel smelled different, expensive, bed-rumpled in a tank and ripped jeans.  He looked so fucking good in civilian.  Skinny and breakable and just out of reach.

Abel pushed him away with both hands.  Leaned on the door frame and looked a little horrified.  That had always been a good look on him.

“Ethan?  Who is it?”  A blond chick peeked around the corner of the dark entry way, rumpled hair lit by the street lamp, wearing a man’s shirt over little shorts.  Pale blond, alike enough to be Abel’s sister, but they all looked alike in this fucking place.

“Yeah, _Abel_ ,” Sacha said, shouldering him out of the way.  “Who is it?” he murmured in Abel’s ear as he pushed in the door, dropping his duffel on the floor.  He wet his lips and gave the girl a smile, looking her up and down.  Right size shirt to be Abel’s, and probably his delicate little hickies darkening on her neck.  Cute mouth, but skinny, no tits.

Abel flushed to the roots of his hair, eyes flicking back and forth between Sacha and the girl.  He swallowed and recovered.  “Jeanie, you remember I told you about my flight partner.  This is Cain,” he said, gesturing weakly at Sacha.

Sacha swept her hand up and kissed it, taking his time to stroke the inside of her wrist and look her in her creepy blue eyes.  “Hope he didn’t tell you all the best parts yet, sweetheart.”

She jerked her hand away, blushing just as hard as Abel had.  “I remember.  The colonial one,” she said, frowning past him at Abel.  “Ethan, I should go.  I have to get up early tomorrow.”  She turned back into the dark house and Abel went after her, shooting Sacha a dirty look.

“Jeanie—“

Sacha hooked his last pack of smokes out of his jacket, half listening to Abel apologize.  He tapped a cigarette out.  Nice place.  Really nice place.  More expensive than he’d thought even from the neighborhood, tall ceilings and a balcony through the living room.  Abel was doing well for himself.  Probably in some soft office job routing shipping trajectories or coding civilian flight plans.

“Jeanie, you don’t have to go, he’s not staying—“ Abel said, following the girl out to the step barefooted, now that she’d gotten her purse and shoes.

She stood on tip toes and gave him a peck on the cheek.  “I’ll call you tomorrow, Ethan,” she said, and turned away towards the lift, still wearing Abel’s shirt.  Her hard little nipples stood out against it in the cool air and Sacha wondered if she’d lost the bra or showed up without one.  He was just getting his cigarette lit as Abel closed the door.

“You can’t smoke in here,” Abel said, back pressed to the door and watching Sacha warily.  Fuck, he looked good, hair mussed over one eye and pants riding low across his hips.  Tight, trendy jeans, probably made his ass look good if he ever turned his back.  Sacha took a long drag on his smoke and looked Abel up and down.  Just a little nervous, hands balled at his sides and now coming up to cross over his chest.  Shallow breaths.

“Nice to see you again too, baby,” Sacha said, dropping the cigarette and crushing it out on the tiled floor.  Let Abel remember who was in charge.  He smiled at Abel’s little frown and stepped toward him.

Abel caught his breath, wetting his lips just a little.  His scar was barely there anymore; you’d only see it if you knew to look for it.  “What are you doing here, Cain?  How’d you get here?” Abel asked.  Sacha closed the distance between them, putting a hand to the door next to Abel’s head and one boot just between Abel’s bare feet.  But not touching, not yet.  It had been months and he missed this part almost more than the fucking, this making Abel want it and wait for it.

“Kept all your little love notes in case I needed a place to crash,” he said, watching Abel’s dark eyes flicker over his mouth.

Abel swallowed and uncrossed his arms, flushing a little as he put light fingers on Sacha’s hip just above the belt.  “You want to sleep here tonight?” Abel asked, looking him in the eye through pale bangs, that mix of virgin shy and slutty boldness that had grabbed him by the cock so hard in the first place.

Sacha smiled and leaned in, using his knee to push Abel’s thighs apart.  “Unless you had other plans, sweetheart,” he murmured, grinding into Abel at the invitation of the little blond’s stiffening cock against his thigh.

Abel melted against him, fingers in his hair.

 

* * *

 

**Abel**

It had been months, more than year, and Cain smelled the same, bitter and sharp as vodka in coffee.  Ethan shuddered as one of his hands was pulled up against the door, Cain’s other hand steadying his hips as they rocked together.

Months without a word and now this, Cain’s mouth rough and demanding on his lips and neck.  Ethan was so hard he couldn’t think straight, worry tugging on the corners of him not working to push Cain’s jacket to the floor.

“Miss me?” Cain asked, leaning back to give Ethan one of his smirks.  Ethan glared at him and tried to pull Cain back by the hair.  God, he’d missed this, but not the waiting, not the mocking.  

Cain twisted him around by the arm, pushing him face first into the wall next to the door.  Cain hadn’t even made it past the front door, and his teeth grazed Ethan’s ear, one hand pulling his hips back as the other worked the buttons of his jeans.  Cain growled into his shoulder and pushed a hand down his pants.

His hands were more callused than Ethan remembered, but Cain gripped him just as hard, pushing him against the door, smothering Ethan with his weight.  Cain bit his ear again and suddenly there was the heat and pressure of Cain’s cock against his bare ass—

“Cain—we can’t—“ Ethan gasped, pushing against the wall and Cain’s weight.  “I don’t have condoms—“

“So what, sweetheart?” Cain murmured against his neck, giving Ethan just enough room to arch his back against Cain’s insistent hand.  “Never used to need one.  You worried about getting knocked up?”

“But it’s been—haven’t you—“  _It’s been months.  Where have you been?  Who have you been with?_ Ethan couldn’t find the words, maybe didn’t want to find them, and forgot about them when Cain’s hand fisted in his hair and pulled his head back.

“You fuck anyone since me, Abel?” Cain asked, squeezing with one hand and edging his words with teeth against Ethan’s neck.  Ethan shook his head, gasping against the sharp tug Cain gave his hair.  “What about the girl?”  Cain’s mouth moved to his ear.  Just soft, warm tongue, no teeth yet, but Cain kept him pressed there against the door, pulling the answer out of him, voyeuristic and possessive and mocking.  

Ethan wondered what the right answer was and what would happen if Cain decided he didn’t like it.  Ethan swallowed, trying to think of the right lie past the distraction of Cain’s thumb on the tip of his cock and Cain’s bony pelvis grinding into him.  “We just—just kissing,” Ethan managed, forgetting how to lie and hoping Cain would be too distracted to use this against him later.   “She wanted to, but I—“ 

“Couldn’t get it up?” Cain asked, squeezing his fingers in a ring around the base of Ethan’s cock.  “Like now, princess, thinking about getting pounded into the floor?”  Ethan shuddered and nodded against the door and Cain’s hand in his hair.  “Good.  Then where’s the lube?”  Cain let his hair go, suddenly gentle, running a hand down his side.  

Ethan really pushed away from him then, turning himself to face Cain and catch his breath.  “I don’t—I haven’t since—I don’t have any,” he said, watching annoyance and then a cruel smirk flicker over Cain’s face.  God, what if someone found out about this?  What if Jeanie told someone?  Things were different in the military, but here—Cain was too reckless for it to work here—

Cain took him by the wrist, leading Ethan into the apartment with a glance into the living room and the kitchen.  What was he looking for?  

The bedroom.  Ethan let himself be pushed down on the bed, Cain stripping shirt and pants, eyeing Ethan up and down as he squirmed out of his own clothes on the bed.  “Relax, sweetheart,” he purred, following Ethan up the bed.  “We’ll just do like we used to.”

 

* * *

 

**Cain**

“Where the fuck are you going?” Sacha snapped, Abel rolling out from under him just as he got close enough to bite that pale shoulder again.  Abel stumbled to the open window and left Sacha there on the bed naked like an idiot.  He hadn’t thought Abel would play so coy after how fast he’d gotten hard, but here he was fussing with shutting the blinds.  “Get your ass back here, princess,” he said, watching the muscles of Abel’s back move as he pulled the shades closed.  

Abel looked over his shoulder with a little smile and Sacha scowled, thinking he should never have gone back to the colonies after Fleet.  

“You waited this long, you can wait a minute longer,” Abel said, moving to close the other window, and Sacha licked his teeth, looking forward to fucking the smugness out of Abel all over again, making him moan and beg for it.  See who wanted to wait for it then.  Abel’s ass looked just as good in the dim light filtering through the shades, but his face was softer, not so pinched and tired as he used to look.  Soft living and desk work and not getting pulled out of bed to get shot at every third night.  

He looked happy here, happy and skittish and coy under Sacha’s look as he came back to the bed, like he wasn’t sure if he should shake himself awake or call the cops.

Sacha sat on the edge of the bed and stopped Abel with a hand on his hip.  Abel looked down at him, dark eyes big in his face, wanting too much like that last time when Sacha had known it was the last time but Abel hadn’t realized it yet.  Sacha ran a hand up Abel’s back and down over his ass and thighs, biting the soft skin of Abel’s side.  He smelled so different, soft cologne and red wine instead of detergent and gin, and Sacha wondered if this was his real smell or just the girl’s smell still on him.  

Didn’t matter, he’d smell like sex and Sacha soon enough.  

Abel’s fingers were light, running down his neck and shoulder as he sucked the soft hollow of Abel’s hip and stroked his cock.  Too light, a little feathery, not as desperate as he’d been at the front door.  Abel sighed and his knees shook just a little as Sacha rolled his tongue over the tip of Abel’s cock for the first time in too long.  He didn’t really believe that Abel hadn’t fucked anyone in this long, but maybe he hadn’t even gotten it up for a girl with a cute mouth to blow him.

And it was even a fucking shame, because Sacha wanted to take this part slow, wanted to make Abel beg for it and  wait for it so he’d remember exactly how long it had been, but he could tell from Abel’s shaky legs and shaky breaths that the little blond wasn’t going to last very long.  So he slicked his fingers and pressed them up into Abel, taking his mouth off Abel’s cock to watch his navigator shudder.  Probably hadn’t found a girl with a cute mouth to do that for him here.  He fucked Abel like that, fingers and mouth with Abel trying to stay standing and getting closer, his fingers twisting in Sacha’s hair, but Sacha wasn’t going to let him get off that easy, not after his snide little comment about waiting.  

Enough of that.  He wanted Abel coming hard from being fucked, not from a blow job.  Abel all but collapsed on the bed when Sacha pulled him down, his legs weak and shaky as he tried to straddle Sacha to kiss.  He hadn’t dragged himself all the way here just to kiss and suck cock, though.  He pushed Abel off him and down onto his belly, running his hand down Abel’s back and smiled as the little blond arched his back and pushed his ass up to meet Sacha’s hand.  He remembered how long it had been, and he was going to take his time reminding Abel exactly how bad he wanted this.

Abel was— _fuck_ —just as tight and hot as he remembered, and Sacha wanted to sink into that feeling and never come up for air again.  He pulled Abel up on hands and knees so he could lean over him from behind and bite his neck as he pushed in slow, Abel shuddering under him.  Abel tried to lean down and rest his head on his arm, pushing his ass up against Sacha, but he pulled Abel back up by the hair.  He was going to make Abel work for it and watch him writhe, because he knew Abel hated and loved to have Sacha make him beg for it instead of just taking what he wanted.  

Abel would never have been half so interesting if he didn’t want it so bad.  

Sacha bit his lip and picked up a rhythm, letting Abel’s hair go so he could lean one hand on the mattress and get going faster, Abel’s back hot against his chest and Abel’s shoulder salty under his mouth.  The little blond tried to bring a hand up to touch himself, but Sacha grabbed his hand away and held it to the mattress.  He was going to have to teach Abel how to take orders all over again.  

He stopped, pressed all the way into Abel and holding him still with one hand in his hair and one hand on his ass.  “How long has it been, Abel?” he murmured, straightening up so he could watch Abel twist in his grip.

“How—?” Abel asked, too close to coming to think straight.

“Since you got off.  How long has it been?”  Sacha loved this.  Loved watching Abel fight himself, loved watching his prim little navigator own up to what a slut he was.  His slut.  

Abel swallowed, gathering up the pieces Sacha had broken him into.  “A couple days ago.  In the shower,” he added, and Sacha smirked, pumping his hips into Abel slowly, as a reward for being so obedient.  

“What were you thinking about, Abel?” he asked quietly.  He wanted to hear this, wanted to know what Abel thought about without Sacha there to tell him how to get off.

Abel sucked his lower lip and tried to hide his face in his arms again, but Sacha slapped his ass and pulled his head back up by the hair.  It had to be good, if Abel wanted so badly to avoid saying it.  “What was it, Abel?” he demanded again, fucking Abel a little harder to remind him who was in charge.  

“Y-you,” Abel choked out, trying to spread his legs wider, trying to get fucked deeper and harder.  “That time in the Reliant.  Going down on you,” he managed, and Sacha let his hair go, leaning down over Abel again and fucking him with a hand around his cock.  He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was; he’d thought Abel would have found someone else to think about in a year and a half, but then, he hadn’t either, so he let Abel come into his hand, Abel’s broken moan and tensing muscles pushing Sacha over the edge too.  

He pushed Abel laying flat on his belly and arranged them so he could lay with an arm and a leg draped over his navigator to fall asleep.  This was exactly what he’d dragged himself here for.

 

* * *

 

May 30

**Abel**

Ethan stretched in the empty bed, sore and a little raw.  He couldn’t remember being so sore, not since the first few times anyway, stiff in his thighs and back.  He winced a little as he rolled out of bed, looking for pants in the false dawn.  Cain was somewhere, his boots where he’d kicked them last night, clothes still scattered.  Ethan pulled on pajama bottoms, thinking about calling in to work.  

He started to pad into the kitchen, but caught a glimpse of movement through the living room—Cain, smoking on the back balcony with two cups of coffee and his bare feet up on the railing.  Ethan stood there, chewing his lip, watching the muscles in Cain’s neck and shoulders move as he tilted his head back against the chair.  Cain brushed a piece of choppy dark hair behind his ear and Ethan’s breath hitched.  He stepped into his office and tapped out a quick message that he’d be working at home today.  He might get some coding done.

“Never used to wake up so early, Abel,” Cain said as Ethan opened the balcony door.  Cain waved him at the other chair and cup of coffee like Ethan was the guest.

“It’s Ethan now,” he said, settling into the chair gingerly.  He watched Cain’s profile, wondering if he’d made that bruise on the dark skin of his neck, or if it had already been there last night.

Cain grinned at him sideways and held out a hand like they’d just met.  “Sacha,” he said around his cigarette.  They shook hands and Ethan flushed, embarrassed like he really had slept with someone he’d just met—which, well, he had, but that was a long time ago.  More than a year apart and Cain looked so much more foreign here.  Ethan had known he was colonial, hung on the touch of accent all that time, but the name jarred him, reminded him of everything they’d never talked about.

“What are you doing here, Cain?” Ethan asked, wishing he’d pressed for answers last night, before—before he’d forgot to press for answers.  The coffee was black, the way Cain took it, bitter and undrinkable.

Cain took a long drag of his cigarette and blew it out, looking out over the empty courtyard of the apartment block.  Ethan found himself watching Cain’s mouth, the cigarette smoke bringing back the early danger.  “Got sick of working security in the colonies,” Cain said with a shrug.  “Thought we’d catch up while I looked for a job here.”

That caught Ethan off guard.  He’d left messages for Cain hoping to see him again, maybe arrange to meet up on vacation someplace no one knew either of them.  Last night he’d somehow thought—hoped?—this would be a passing thing, Cain here and gone without another word for months.  Here just long enough to hurt and remind.  Cain flicked his cigarette butt down into the courtyard and put a hand on Ethan’s thigh.

“You can’t do that here,” Ethan said, clearing his head with a shake and pushing Cain’s hand away.  “Someone might see.”  

Cain frowned and reached across to put a hand on the back of Ethan’s neck.  “You afraid someone’s going to call daddy?” he asked, angry and mocking.

Ethan shrugged him off.  “Or the papers.  Things are different here, and it’s election season.  You can stay here, but we have to be careful.”  He fussed with his coffee cup, guilty for wanting Cain’s hands on him and guilty for pushing him away.  

Cain gave him a level look.  “You never said you were related to that asshole.  Had to find it out from the news when you got your big fucking welcome home, unlike the rest of us.  Good to know who I was fucking all that time.”

“It was none of your business, and anyway, you’re one to talk after what Bering put you up to.”  Ethan set his jaw and pushed himself up from the table before they started a fight on the balcony for all the neighbors to hear.  His father would love to see that in the papers.  

Cain followed him into the flat, slow but wound tight, like letting a predator roam the house.  Ethan found his shirt from last night on the floor and pulled it on.  Cain was right behind him, a hand on his waist now, fingertips brushing up under his shirt.  _Just because we fucked doesn’t mean we’re in love, sweetheart._ When had Cain said that?  A few weeks after the first time.  He should call Jeanie and apologize for last night.  

Cain’s nose and mouth brushed against his neck, and Ethan forgot why he’d been looking for his phone.  When they got out of bed again, he cleared out a couple of dresser drawers and helped Cain put his things away, since he was going to be staying a while.

 


	3. Chapter 3

June 4

**Abel**

“Deimos.”  It was rude; he couldn’t help it.  Ethan just stood there in the doorway, staring at him.  Whoever he’d expected at the door, it wasn’t Deimos.  Deimos just stood there and looked him up and down, judging Ethan’s bare feet and unbelted jeans and wet hair.  

“Do you want to come in?” Ethan asked, stepping aside.  He’d never liked Deimos, never understood why Cain refused to stop seeing him, but his mother would die of embarrassment if she knew he was rude to someone for something so petty as disliking them.  “Cain’s, uh, in the shower,” he said, embarrassed again under the look Deimos gave his wet hair.  He’d been in the shower until he left to get the door, on his knees with his mouth wrapped around Cain.  They were supposed to go out for drinks to celebrate Cain getting a job, but now here was Deimos to ruin things.

Deimos followed him into the house, quiet and appraising, looking everything over.  “Do you, um, want a drink?” Ethan asked, more uncomfortable than when he’d run into Deimos at the VA.  He’d taken Deimos’ number because he’d understood his desperation, even if he didn’t like it, and it had seemed unlikely at the time that they’d ever hear from Cain anyway.  It had seemed unkind to be petty about someone neither of them were going to see again anyway.  

But he hadn’t given Deimos his address or number, because even if he felt a little sorry for Deimos, he still didn’t like him, so Deimos must have gotten the address either from Fleet records or from Cain, and Ethan didn’t like either of those options. 

Deimos didn’t say anything to the offer of a drink, so Ethan distracted himself with making a gin and tonic to avoid having to make small talk.  Deimos just stood in the middle of the living room, watching him, judging and silent.  

The shower finally turned off.  “Cain?” Ethan called.  He walked back into the bedroom with his glass, leaving Deimos there with an anxious glance.  Cain was there, toweling off and pulling on clothes.  “Deimos is here,” Ethan said, hoping Cain would go out and tell Deimos to leave.

“Good.  You almost ready to go?” Cain asked, pulling on a belt.

“I thought we were going out for drinks,” Ethan said, trying to keep his voice down so Cain couldn’t accuse him of hysterics.

“We are,” Cain said, toweling off his hair.  “So is Deimos.  Go get your shoes, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You never said he was coming,” Ethan said, putting his glass down on the dresser.  “You could have asked—“

Cain dropped the towel and stepped into Ethan’s space, shirtless and damp and menacing.  “You can come with, or you can stay here, but you don’t get to whine about it, princess.  You don’t tell me who I can have a beer with.”  

Ethan shrugged away from him, but Cain put a hand on the wall next to him to keep him there, looking him up and down.  “You said we were going out,” Ethan said again.

Cain’s smile was slow, and he brought his hand off the wall to stroke Ethan’s face and run a thumb over his mouth.  Ethan was almost fooled by the softness of his look, almost thought Cain might apologize or tell Deimos to leave and it would be just them.  “Did you think we were going on a date, sweetheart?” Cain asked, grabbing Ethan’s chin roughly.  “Tch.  Maybe we can go out for ice cream and hold hands later, if you’re good.”  He pushed Ethan into the wall and turned away, pulling on a shirt.  “I don’t care if you get your shoes or stay here, but don’t be a little bitch about it.”

Ethan stalked back into the living room, trying to calm himself down before he told Cain to get his things and leave with Deimos.  He hated Cain’s hypocritical jealousy, hated the look Deimos gave him like he had no right to be in his own apartment, hated the knot in his stomach at the thought of Cain and Deimos leaving together.  So he got his shoes and pulled them on, Deimos watching disapprovingly until Cain came out and looked Ethan up and down, one eyebrow raised.

They went to a seedy bar in the colonial part of town, where hardly anyone spoke English and Ethan got sidelong looks as the only blond in the place, but no one said anything, or at least, anything that he could understand.  He avoided drinking too much, even when Cain made fun of him for not being able to keep up, too angry to trust himself to keep up with Cain and Deimos and not turn it into a scene in an unfamiliar part of town.  They played pool, and Ethan lost, and lost again, so he bought the first round, and the next one, and the next one, until Deimos stumbled home disappointed and left Ethan to walk to the train station with Cain.

“I haven’t fucked him since then,” Cain said as they walked.  Ethan looked at him sideways, not sure how much to trust that.  Cain had never lied to him directly, but he lied by omission from the first to the last.  Just because Cain hadn’t slept with Deimos since then didn’t mean he wasn’t going to, or that he hadn’t slept with anyone else.  Ethan didn’t say anything.

“Would you lighten up, Abel?  Who the fuck am I going home with?”  Cain took a cigarette out and lit it.  “Just because we’re fucking doesn’t mean I can’t have a beer with someone else.”  _Just because we fucked doesn’t mean we’re in love._   Ethan didn’t say anything, but let Cain go down on him when they got home, since he knew Cain didn’t know how to apologize any other way.

 

* * *

 

June 20

**Abel**

Ethan drifted from room to room, trying to pick up the apartment or get some coding done, but too distracted to concentrate on anything.  He should have gone out with his friends from school when they’d called earlier, but Cain had said he’d be home right after work and now he was almost two hours late.  Their schedules didn’t line up much except for weekends, Cain working the late shift bouncing at a strip club and Ethan still working normal hours, so he’d though Cain had meant it when he’d said to wait up.  

He gave up and went to bed.  Sometimes Cain came home and sometimes he didn’t, and Ethan had learned to not ask where he’d been, why he still kept a slip of paper with Deimos’ address, why his pockets were full of crumpled small change when Ethan did the laundry.  He didn’t need Cain to pay rent, or tell him where he’d gone after Fleet, or where he went instead of coming home, but he wanted something at least a little like a routine.  

Sometimes Cain stumbled in as Ethan was leaving for work, sometimes he woke Ethan up in the middle of the night to fuck after he got home.  And once in a while Ethan worked at home and they lay in bed the whole morning, eating breakfast and having sex.  Ethan didn’t mind that part so much except it made Cain seem mellower, less demanding, and it felt too much like they were something besides roommates who fucked.  And then Cain went back to being Cain and didn’t come home.

He’d almost drifted off when his phone rang and he picked it up without looking at it.  Cain didn’t have a phone here, refused to get one and Ethan suspected it was to keep Ethan from having a way to check up on him, but Ethan had nightmares about getting a call to bail Cain out of jail and explaining it to his father or a reporter.  Cain didn’t understand how things worked here.  He thought he could get through everything on bluster and charm and intimidation like he had in the military, but it was going to come down on both of them sooner rather than later.

“I speak with Alexander, please?” a woman’s voice asked.  

Not the police.  Just some woman with a wrong number

“I’m sorry, I think you—oh.”  Alexander.  Sacha.  “You’re looking for Cai—er, Sacha?” Ethan asked, hoping it really was a wrong number.

Silence.  Ethan thought the woman might have hung up, but then she spoke again.  “You are Abel,” she said.  Didn’t ask, only said it like she’d just realized it.  Ethan wondered who she’d thought she was calling.

“Uh—yes, this is Abel.  Who is this?  Can I take a message?”  He wanted to get this woman off the phone as fast as possible, didn’t want to think about who she was and what she meant to Cain and what he’d told her about when they had been Cain and Abel instead of Sacha and Ethan.  

“Sacha, he is not there?”  Colonial.  Her English was understandable, but not competent, and there was a lag as the call was relayed through the satellites.  

Maybe she was why Cain had gone back to the colonies after discharge without a word of explanation.  Back to his real life.  _Abel’s nobody, just a new girlfriend._   Ethan had thought Cain just said that to other fighters as a macho thing, so he’d tried to not be embarrassed about it, but now he flushed as hot as he had the first time Cain had said it to his face.  

“He’ll be back from work in a few hours.  I’ll tell him to call back if you leave a number,” Ethan snapped, angry enough at Cain to forget what the fight would be like if Cain decided Ethan shouldn’t have told this woman anything.  Cain wasn’t even here, was out who knew where, and Ethan knew he’d find something to be angry about no matter what Ethan said to this woman.

More silence.  Ethan guiltily wondered if she was thinking the same thing, wondering how much Cain had said about her.  He wondered if this was the number Cain had left listed with Fleet after discharge, the number Ethan had left all those embarrassing messages at.  “He is living here,” she said quietly.  

“Yes?” Ethan said, and was angry with himself when it came out as a question.  He didn’t understand the woman’s accent, didn’t understand what she wanted, didn’t understand who she was or what he should be saying.  

“He said you are too kind.  Tell him his Natasha called, he will know.  Goodbye, Abel.”  Then she did hang up, leaving Ethan holding the phone and wondering what that meant.  _His Natasha._  

Ethan was still there, sitting on the edge of the bed frowning at the phone, when Cain came home, a few minutes later, a few hours later, it didn’t really matter.  “Abel!  Abel, get your ass up, we’re going out—“  Cain leaned into the bedroom.  He was still dressed for work in a dark button up that seemed too classy for a strip club, looking dangerous and overwhelming and too seductive.  “The fuck is wrong with you?”  

Cain stepped into the bedroom as Ethan held the phone out.  “You had a phone call,” Ethan said.  

He could have just lied instead.  Cain did it all the time.

“Who?”  Cain frowned at the phone, holding himself back warily like it would bite him.

“Natasha?” Ethan said, and the phone was out of his hand almost before he finished saying it.  Cain frowned at it, thumbing through the recent calls.  Ethan got up and went to the kitchen to give him some privacy.  He got out the bottle of zinfandel he’d opened for dinner and poured himself a half glass, just enough to help him sleep, since they wouldn’t be going out after this.  Or at least Ethan wouldn’t be.

“Tash.  How’d you get this number?  What do you want?” Cain demanded, loud enough to carry from the bedroom.  Ethan came out to stand between the office and the front room, not sure where to go to avoid hearing this.  He thought about going out to the balcony, but just stood there, thinking.  _Fucking navigators overthinking everything._

He’d only taken a couple of sips when Cain came out to glare at him, like he should be getting out of Cain’s way in his own apartment.  Cain took the glass out of Ethan’s hand and went back to the bedroom, phone still pressed to his ear.

“Fuck, I don’t care,” Cain said.  Ethan went back to the kitchen and poured himself another glass of wine, trying not to eavesdrop, but Cain paced in and out of the bedroom.  Like he was looking for something, or trying to get away from something.  “Yeah, I remember.  She fucking kicked us out when you got pregnant, you remember that too?  She can rot in hell for all I care.”

 _Pregnant._   Cain had been gone a year and a half; more than enough time.  He didn’t seem like the fatherly type.  Maybe that was why he’d left.

Cain came and put his empty glass down in front of Ethan, gesturing impatiently for the glass to be refilled.  “Fuck no, I’m not coming back for it,” he said, glaring at Ethan as he poured too slow.  “Why the fuck would I?”  Cain took his glass and paced back into the bedroom, leaving Ethan there holding an empty bottle.  

Quiet.  Then, “Tash.  Tash, come on, I’m sorry.”  

When had Cain ever apologized to anyone for anything?  

Or at least, when had he ever apologized to Ethan for anything.  

“Tash, would you just shut up?  People die, it’s what they do.”  Cain’s voice dropped, and if Ethan was being honest, now he was eavesdropping, angry and hurt and wanting to know who it was Cain cared enough about to apologize to.  He stood there in the living room in his pajamas, drinking a glass of tepid white wine and willing himself to not move out of the way if Cain came out to pace the living room again.  

“Look, I’d come if I could, but I don’t have the money for it right now.”  Quiet.  “No, I’m not going to fucking ask him, it’s not like that—you know what, go to hell, Tash, you don’t know how it is.”  Silence, except for the sound of Cain pacing back and forth.  “Don’t call here again, I don’t care who dies.  Tell Uncle Bilki I said to go fuck himself.”  

Real silence then.  The sound of the phone being thrown down on the bed and a glass being put down on the nightstand.  Ethan finished his wine in two swallows and braced himself for Cain, frowning at his empty glass.  He knew he wasn’t Cain’s—Sacha’s—real life, but Cain had shown up on his doorstep without so much as a call and rearranged Ethan’s whole life.  He’d, maybe stupidly, thought there was a reason, thought Cain had come back to him and not just left something else, but he’d never really understood why Cain did what he did.  

Cain stalked out of the bedroom then, walking by Ethan to the kitchen without so much as a look.  Ethan stood there, feeling out of place in what had been his apartment.  Looked at his glass, his feet, the empty wine bottle sitting on the side table.  Cain banged around in the kitchen, cursing and throwing cabinet doors open.

He came out with Ethan’s only shot glass and the bottle of vodka.  Cain took a pull from the bottle and poured the shot glass full.  

Ethan looked down at it stupidly when Cain held it out to him.  “Take the goddamn drink, Abel,” Cain said, scowling.  Ethan took it, brought it to his lips but stopped when Cain glared at him.  Cain clinked the bottle of vodka against Ethan’s glass.  “To babushka.  That fucking bitch,” Cain said, and took another drink, so Ethan took his shot too.  Better vodka than the contraband Cain got in the military, although not by much, but at least Ethan had gotten used to it so he didn’t cough every time Cain had them take shots together.  

Cain took the glass and the bottle back to the kitchen, leaving Ethan standing there thinking about if he should just go to bed.  

Cain walked past Ethan again without a look, leaving the balcony door open behind him as he sat and lit a cigarette.  Ethan came up to close it, but hesitated.  “Is everything okay?” he finally asked to Cain’s back.  _He said you are too kind._  

“Fine.  Just a funeral for someone who deserves it.”   

“Do you need to go back?”  

Cain glared over his shoulder and Ethan pulled back into the yellow safety of the apartment, where the balcony seemed a little darker and he couldn’t see Cain’s glare so well.  He wondered if he’d given away how much he’d overheard. Cain turned away.  “Go to bed,” he said.  

“Are you coming to bed?” Ethan asked.  Maybe that was pushing too far; Cain’s shoulders tensed and Ethan stepped out of the balcony door so he wouldn’t get shoved when Cain went to get his jacket and leave.  Ethan watched Cain take a deep breath and wondered if he should start thinking about how to tell Cain to move out.  

“Be there in a minute.  ‘M gonna finish my smoke.”  Ethan hesitated, but went back to the bedroom, listening for Cain to change his mind and leave anyway.  He pulled his shirt off and threw it in the corner, too hot to sleep in pajamas but feeling too vulnerable and emotional to have Cain find him in bed naked, so he lay down in just his pajama bottoms.  Pulled the sheet up and lay curled on his side in the dark.

Cain did come to bed, kicking his boots off in the doorway before turning off the lights in the main room.  Ethan followed the quiet sound of his footsteps as Cain sat down on his side of the bed.

He tensed when Cain laid a hand on his hair, brushing it up away from his ear and leaning down to put his mouth on Ethan’s neck.  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to push Cain away or pull him closer.  Cain was still dressed, draping himself across the bed and over Ethan with his shirt only half unbuttoned, smelling like vodka and cigarettes and the cheap perfume the girls at the strip club wore.  

Ethan hated that smell.  

Cain’s hand brushed down Ethan’s arm and his teeth ghosted over Ethan’s bare shoulder.  Cain wasn’t going to say anything, Ethan knew that.  He never said anything when he could avoid it, but sometimes Ethan could pull half an answer out of him if he tried.  

The problem was whether half an answer was worth having.  

“Who’s Natasha?” Ethan asked.  Cain’s hand and mouth stopped.

“No one.  Forget about it, I told her not to call again.”  That was all, then his mouth was back on Ethan’s shoulder, rougher and more insistent, but his hand was slow, absent.  Ethan wondered who Cain was trying to distract, himself or Ethan, and if Cain was thinking about Ethan or the woman.  _His Natasha._   Ethan wasn’t going to be a distraction or a proxy for Cain and whatever reason he’d left the colonies for.

“Who is she?” Ethan pushed, staying still on his side.  

Cain sat up, taking his hands and his mouth and his smell away, the weight of his stare pressing on Ethan’s shoulders until he had to look over his shoulder at Cain, silhouetted faintly against the closed blinds.  “Are you jealous?” Cain asked finally, disbelief or amusement or something in his voice.

Ethan turned away again.  They’d done this before about Deimos.  Cain made promises and found some way out of it, and Ethan was just tired of it.  Tired of Cain and all his secrets.  

Cain put a hand on his shoulder and pushed Ethan on his back, looking down at him.  Ethan couldn’t quite make out his expression in the dark, but tried to follow the line of Cain’s undershirt beneath the open button-down.  “You really think I’d give your number to an ex-girlfriend?” Cain asked.  “What kind of asshole do you think I am?”  

Ethan didn’t say, _You gave my number to Deimos._

“Who is she?” Ethan said instead.  

“My fucking sister,” Cain snapped, and got up.  Ethan half sat up to watch him get his boots and leave, but Cain undid the rest of his buttons and threw shirt and undershirt into the corner after Ethan’s clothes.  He’d have to do laundry again soon.  “You happy, princess?  You need to know how many tits I looked at tonight too?”  Cain kicked his pants away and climbed under the sheet naked.  

“You have a sister?” Ethan asked stupidly, laying back and frowning up at the ceiling.  

Cain laughed.  “Yeah.  You never thought of that, did you, princess?  Had a fucking evil grandmother until tonight too.”  Cain reached out and pulled Ethan to him, fisting a hand in his hair.  Ethan let himself be pressed to Cain’s bare chest, because he really hadn’t thought about it at all.  Cain was just Cain, didn’t need Ethan, and didn’t need anyone else.  “You need to be nosy about anything else tonight, princess?” Cain asked, and Ethan thought he must have been a little drunk to make the offer.

“Who’s oldest?” he tried.  It seemed like a safe question, and maybe if he didn’t push too hard at first Cain wouldn’t be so closed later.  

Cain snorted.  “She is,” he said, and that was all.  He smoothed Ethan’s hair down and put his chin on the top of Ethan’s head.  Ethan adjusted his ear against Cain’s collarbone and thought they were done.  “Looks like our mother,” Cain added quietly.  Ethan held his breath, waiting for anything else, but Cain’s breath evened out to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This borrows Cain’s backstory from the exceptionally well written “Ties That Bind” by P4rtyhats: http://p4rtyh4ts.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3c0sg0. I took the liberty of changing Cain’s name, but otherwise I’m gratuitously stealing P4rtyhat’s OC.


	4. Chapter 4

July 2

**Abel**

“I thought you said you had a car,” Cain said reproachfully, crossing his arms and leaning on the door frame of the little garage.  

Ethan pulled the dust cover off his motorcycle, ignoring Cain’s coughs as dust swirled out the door.  He’d left the bike in storage after his enlistment and it had been the first thing he’d moved when he came back and got an apartment.  His father probably would have sold it if he’d left it parked at home.  He ran a hand along the front fender before turning to look for the helmets.  

Hadn’t had much time to ride it or any reason to, nowhere to go except take a girl out once in a while when his parents tried to set him up with someone.  This was as good an excuse as any, even if Cain pouted about not wanting to play house over a long weekend at the lake house.  Ethan hadn’t told him it would make him less nervous to have Cain out of the city and away from any possibility of someone he knew dropping by the apartment over the holiday.

“Said I had a ride.  You don’t like it?” Ethan asked.  Where was that second helmet, the one he’d bought for Katrina when they’d thought—there it was. He tossed it at Cain, who caught it one handed and glared at him.  It’d probably fit him.

“I’m not getting on it.  Not if you drive like you fly,” Cain said, feinting to throw the helmet back at him.  Ethan just gave Cain a look and checked gauges.  Still good.  

“You didn’t mind my flying when we were at the top of the rankings,” Ethan said.  He got on, straddling the bike and watching Cain over his shoulder as he started to back the bike out the door.  “You said I was the best navigator you ever had.”  Cain grunted and frowned at the concrete floor, and Ethan thought if Cain had been capable of blushing, he would have.  Cain had said that after sex one night, not long before they were discharged.  He’d probably hoped Ethan would forget about it, or at least never mention it.

“You coming or what?” Ethan asked, getting off the bike to shut and lock the garage.  Cain just glowered.  Ethan got back on the bike and shrugged.  “I don’t have a sidecar.  Your choice, Cain.  You can stay or you can ride bitch.”  He pulled on his helmet and turned over the engine.  A little rough.  He’d pick up some oil when they stopped.  It purred, though, better than anything.  Ships were great, but nothing like this, not so personal and close, all that power there right under you.  

Cain growled but pulled his own helmet on, climbing on behind Ethan, who smirked just a little in the privacy of his helmet at the way Cain leaned into him, the bike easing down the concrete alley between the garages.  It was good to be back on the bike, but he ached to get out on the highway already and push it as fast as the bike and Cain would let him.  Cain’s hands lay calmly on his thighs, but Ethan could tell from the heat radiating off Cain’s palms and his shallow breaths that he’d have something to say when Ethan let him off the bike.

He thought he could hear Cain muttering something, but couldn’t make it out between the helmets and the purr of the engine.  Ethan opened the throttle just a little to speed them out onto the street, his heart beating a little faster when Cain’s hands tightened on his waist.  Cain’s hands went back to Ethan’s thighs when he straightened the bike out and settled into the rhythm of traffic, but Cain’s legs tightened against him every time they rounded a corner.  

Almost as good as sex, but different, Cain leaning into him and clinging instead of pushing and grabbing.  Cain’s weight pressed into his back, hips grinding into him with the vibration of the engine.  

And then the highway opened up, traffic light, huge gaps to weave through and really get Cain’s arms wrapped around him.  He cut a little close between two trucks and grinned into his helmet as Cain gave a startled yelp.  The miles rolled away, buildings and billboards giving way to irrigated farms and tract housing as they got further from the city, and Ethan’s thighs ached a little from being off the bike so long.  He hoped Cain was getting a sore ass from his first time too.  

The suburbs finally gave way to thin prairie and stands of pines, and Ethan gave Cain a break as he slowed onto the back roads to the lake house.  He’d remembered the trip being longer when he was younger, but right now he’d have given anything to just drive for a couple of hours.  Maybe he could talk Cain into another ride in a few days after he forgot to be mad.  

Ethan eased the bike up the driveway of the shuttered lake house, bounding off the bike as soon as they were stopped.  He dropped his helmet on the ground and took the front steps two at a time, just to rub Cain’s nose in it.  Cain growled as he dismounted stiffly.  “Fuck,” Cain muttered, stretching his back.  “You’re going to pay for this, Abel,” he yelled at Ethan’s back.  “Fucking crazy navigator.”

Ethan unlocked the front door, watching Cain sideways.  Cain eyed the trees surrounding the house and leading back down the drive, looking up into them like he expected something to jump down at him.

The house smelled like dust and pine.  Ethan kicked off his shoes and walked through the house in his socks, pushing open shutters and watching dust swirl in the sunlight.  He pulled open the doors to the porch facing the lake as Cain’s heavy boots came up the front stairs.

Ethan turned to look at him over his shoulder when he heard Cain stop in the main room.  He stood in the middle of the house, looking up to the loft and back and forth from the open kitchen to the sofas around the fireplace.  Cain raised an eyebrow and pointed up to the edge of the bed visible in the loft.  “Only one bed up there.  You want to fuck on your parent’s bed, princess?” he asked, and Ethan thought he sounded just a little uncomfortable.

“This is just the guest house,” Ethan said, shaking his head.  “My parents stay in the main house, down there,” he said, gesturing at the roof visible down the hill towards the lake as Cain came out to the porch.  

Cain snorted and stood behind him, just out of reach.  “Can’t see any other houses from here,” he said after a while, and Ethan turned to see him looking sideways at the narrow wicker loveseat on the far end of the porch.  “Many boats go by?”

Ethan shook his head.  “Not many neighbors, it’s a small lake.”  He swallowed and took a step towards Cain.  “There’s a daybed down in the boathouse,” he said, wondering if it was too cold to go skinny dipping.  

 

* * *

 

July 3

**Cain**

Sacha slid in and out of Abel lazily, pushing the sheet to the floor so they’d get a little breeze in the stuffy loft.  Abel moaned into the mattress beneath him, sleepily pushing his ass up against Sacha.  He smelled like woodsmoke and pine from the fire on the beach last night and Sacha thrust a little harder, thinking about the embarrassed flush on Abel’s face last night as he’d jacked off the little blond right there on the lake for anyone to see.  

He could have gotten used to this, could have fucked Abel’s sweet ass like this every morning, if he didn’t have to go back to that fucking city or stay on Earth to do it.  Not that Abel could go out to the colonies, not without dyeing his hair and changing his name.  And being less of a pansy.  

He pulled Abel’s hips up enough to get a hand under him, wrapping his fingers around the little blond’s cock and dragging another sleepy moan out of him.  Like Vronsky and Anna fucking Karenina, couldn’t go there and couldn’t stay here.  He growled into Abel’s shoulder and pulled almost all the way out of him.  Pushed in slow, just to get the feeling of entering him again.  So fucking good.  But not good enough to stay here for, not forever, not suffocating and going crazy with Abel’s anxiety and neediness.

He wasn’t stupid; he knew Abel had navigator friends from Fleet who he didn’t bring by the apartment anymore, now that Sacha was there, and he knew when Abel took some girl out to keep up appearances that he avoided bringing her home.  Abel was so fucking worried about appearances that he’d cleared out his office and gone out to buy another bed, like it was anyone’s fucking business where either of them slept.  

Abel was close now, so close, he could tell from the little blond’s sleepy, frantic thrusts into his hand and the way Abel tried to crane his head back to be kissed.  Sacha took his hand away and pressed Abel flat to the bed, kissing Abel rough over his shoulder until they were both coming, Abel onto the mattress beneath them and Sacha into him.  So fucking good.  Maybe good enough to stay a while longer for.

 

* * *

 

July 5

**Cain**

Sacha smoked and lay out on the porch, half listening for Abel to get his skinny ass back from the lake already.  Abel had practically begged him to go swimming, but there was no fucking way he was going in that cold, black water, no way he’d admit, especially not to Abel, that he’d never learned to swim and was never going to.  It gave him creeping chills to watch Abel’s blond hair disappear under the water and come back up, floating further out where his feet couldn’t touch the bottom, like being cut loose from a ship with only your flight suit and the air in your lungs against all that blackness.  Didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to watch Abel do it.  So he sat on the porch and drank Abel’s beer instead.  

He pushed himself sitting at the sound of car tires crunching on gravel, and went to stand on the front steps, beer in hand.  Black car, dark windows.  Government plates.  Fuck, where was Abel?  So many fucking ways this could be awful.

An older guy got out, white haired, but they were all like that here, and Sacha wished even harder that Abel would get his ass back from the lake already.  Abel’s father looked him up and down, frowning.  Sacha took a swig of beer to steady himself and wished he was wearing something besides torn pants and one of Abel’s shirts.  

“If you’re the new gardener, you can leave now,” Abel’s father said, shutting the car door.  “Tell the management company I don’t care for help who drink on the job.”  The asshole made to come up the steps, but Sacha stood his ground.

“‘M here with Ethan,” Sacha said around his cigarette.  “Who the fuck are you?” he asked, even though he knew, he knew exactly who this asshole was.  

Sacha didn’t follow politics much, especially Earth politics, but he kept up with who wanted to have him thrown in jail and take away his veterans’ benefits for fucking who he wanted, like getting shot at and thrown around in a little tin can meant any less if you fucked men while you did it.   And the asshole wanted to push it on the colonies too, so that Sacha’s sister would lose the healthcare Sacha had gotten for her just because of who her brother fucked, family values bullshit that didn’t give a damn about colonial families or anything besides reelections on Earth.  

He should have deleted all of Abel’s messages as soon as he figured out who his fucking father was.

Abel’s father looked up at him from the bottom of the steps, and Sacha could see the resemblance across the eyes, but Abel’s jaw was finer, not so square, and he didn’t clench his jaw shut like this asshole.  “I’m his father.  You must be the new colonial . . . _roommate_ ,” he said, and Sacha wondered how much Abel’s father knew, or thought he knew, or suspected.  Abel wasn’t flaming, but he wasn’t exactly subtle, either.  “Where’s Ethan?”  

Sacha jerked his head backwards.  “At the lake,” he said, and hoped that would get the asshole to go down the hill and look, but he just stood there, looking Sacha up and down like he was thinking about how big a shoe he would need to crush a bug.  

“Cain?” Abel called from the back of the house then, probably coming up to the porch.  “Cain, do you want lunch?” he called, and finally stuck his head out the front door, dripping wet and wearing just a towel low across his hips with nothing under it.  Fabulous fucking time to go skinny dipping.  “Dad,” Abel said, and came out to stand on the front step next to Sacha.  Looked back and forth between them.  “Are you—do you want to come in?” he asked.  “What are you doing up here?”

“I had a meeting at a donor’s lakehouse and your mother said you were here for the weekend,” Abel’s father said, staying where he was.  “I thought we could go fishing, but it seems you’re . . . _occupied_ ,” he said, flicking his eyes at Sacha.  Abel followed his look and blushed.  Like Sacha was a huge fucking embarrassment to be caught with.  

Abel’s father turned back to the car then, and Abel shouldered past Sacha, hurrying down to the gravel driveway barefooted.  Sacha stayed where he was on the steps, too angry to leave but too angry to watch this.  Couldn’t and shouldn’t do anything, not with how many different ways Abel’s father could fuck up both their lives, and a punch to the face wouldn’t fix any of them.  Probably make everything worse, even if it would be satisfying until Abel lit into him and told him off for being a moron.  Abel and his father stood next to the car, trying to keep their voices down and both pointedly not looking at Sacha.  

He almost jumped down the steps when Abel’s father put a hand on the little blond’s arm, grabbing tight enough to bruise, because no one fucking touched his navigator, especially not this asshole, but Abel jerked away and his father was getting in the car before Sacha could even take a step.  Slammed the door harder than it needed to be and backed the car down the driveway, spitting gravel from under the tires.  

Abel stood there in the driveway, back to Sacha and watching the car leave.  His feet were dirty, sand from the lake and dust from the driveway sticking to his wet skin, and Sacha thought about going down to him.  Stood on the steps and smoked instead, beer dripping condensation on his feet.  Abel didn’t need him and probably would have been better off if he’d never shown up.  Didn’t say anything as Abel came up the steps blank-faced and took Sacha’s beer, draining it.  

Sacha followed Abel into the house and watched him go up to the loft to change.  Just stood there like an idiot in the middle of the room wondering if he should start figuring out how to get back to the colonies.  Still no money for a ticket back, not after he’d blown the last of it getting here, but he could figure something out if he had to.

He frowned at a fistful of ragged blue and white flowers laying on the table, scraggly ditch weeds Abel had brought up from the lake.  Like they were playing house out here instead of fucking and drinking for a weekend.  Sacha rinsed out a beer bottle and stuck the flowers in it, some of the petals scattering on the table.  

“I’m sorry if he said anything,” Abel said from the loft, his voice quiet, and Sacha hoped he wasn’t crying up there because he didn’t want to fucking deal with it.

“Just tried to fire me for being a crappy gardener,” Sacha said, going to the fridge for more beer.  Abel sounded like he could use one, or a couple.  

Abel laughed a little, a choked, guilty sound.  “Sorry,” he said, poking his head over the loft railing.  “At least he didn’t show up while we were—you know.”

“Fucking?” Sacha asked, opening a beer.  Abel blushed and ducked his head back out of sight, but Sacha thought he caught a smile.  

And wouldn’t that have been a great way to meet Abel’s father.  Sacha’s ass and thighs were still sore from bending Abel over the kitchen table that morning and then sitting with his ass on the cool wood floor while Abel rode him.  _Pleased to meet you sir, here’s your fucking family values._   He wanted to go up there and make Abel forget all this bullshit, but fucking probably wasn’t a great way to take your mind off your dad being pissed to find out you liked it up the ass.  

The military had been a lot simpler.  Didn’t have to worry about Abel’s goddamn feelings so much or whether anyone else cared that they were fucking.  

Abel came downstairs, shirt in hand and wearing just linen pants, toweling his hair out.  Blushed a little when he saw Sacha looking him up and down.  Sacha opened the other beer and held it out for him.  Watched his pale throat work as he took a drink.  

Abel frowned a little at the flowers leaning over in the beer bottle, sucking his lip and thinking too hard.  “What did your parents think?” he asked suddenly.  “When they found out,” he added, and looked down to fidget with peeling the label off his bottle.

Sacha shrugged.  “Don’t know,” he said, and took a drink as he turned back out to the porch, not interested in talking about this.

Abel followed him, pulling on his shirt.  “You haven’t told them yet?” Abel prodded.  Too fucking nosy.  Looking for other peoples’ problems when he had enough of his own.  

“They’re dead.”  

“Oh,” Abel said, stopping in the doorway to the porch.  “Oh.  I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”  They weren’t on any of the official lists, but his sister had seen them shot, even if Sacha had been too young to remember it.  “Lived with babushka and my sister after that,” he said, to keep Abel from asking.  

“Oh.  Did you—does your sister know?”

Know that he’d never fucked a chick and never planned to, or know that he was here fucking the son of a goddamn senator specifically?  Fuck.  How had Abel made this about him?  It wasn’t his dad who’d rolled up and pitched a fit, and there was a fucker who deserved a punch in the face if there was one.  Sacha took a drink and cracked his neck.  “Nobody ever gave a shit.  You going to make lunch or not?”  

“Uh.  Yeah.  I guess.”  Abel fidgeted with the label on his beer bottle, not moving.  Sacha turned to glare over his shoulder and Abel startled back.  “Do you want leftovers?” Abel asked quietly. 

Sacha grunted and turned back to the lake.  “Don’t care.”  

Abel stood there, shifting back and forth on his feet, probably fidgeting with his beer bottle.  He finally turned back into the house and left Sacha to some goddamn quiet again.  He smoked sitting on the steps of the porch, feet in the grass until Abel came back out with two sandwiches on a plate.  

Cheese and onions and leftover venison steak Abel had put on the grill that first night.  _Dad goes hunting with campaign donors sometimes,_ Abel had said.  Sacha hadn’t liked it then, and didn’t like it any better now, thinking about the kind of asshole who would give money to get Abel’s father reelected.  They ate in silence sitting on the steps, looking out at the lake and not sitting close enough to touch.  

Abel fussed and took the empty beer bottles and plate back in.  Sacha thought about lighting another smoke but didn’t want to go back into town for another pack if he ran out.  Last time the girl at the cash register had tried to get Abel’s number.  

Abel came back to sit on the steps, chewing his lip.  Always thinking too hard.  “Why’d you leave the colonies?” he asked quietly.

Sacha glared at him, because he knew Abel.  He meant _why’d you fuck up my life_ and _why’d you leave me_ and _why’d you want me back._   Too nosy, too needy.  Sacha had had shit to do, like trying to get his sister to move somewhere better and trying to forget about Abel, but neither of those had worked out, and didn’t need to be talked about now.  Like he had to tell Abel a goddamn thing about why he did anything.  “Told you.  Better jobs here,” he said, and ignored Abel’s look sideways.  

Abel stood up with a little shake of his head, not looking at Sacha.  “I’m going down to the lake.  I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said, picking up his damp towel from where he’d dropped it on the porch.  

He turned down the path to the dock, hesitating a little when he heard Sacha’s footsteps behind him.  Didn’t stop or turn back until they were at the lake, though, and gave Sacha a shy smile as they both changed to shorts in the boat house and walked to the water.  Abel swam out first and didn’t say anything as Sacha waded in knees deep and stayed there.  He watched Abel float on his back just out of reach, pale hair drifting around him.


	5. Chapter 5

July 16

**Abel**

“You sure you’re okay walking home by yourself?” Katrina asked as the train slowed.  Ethan smiled and hugged her with one arm, then Miranda.  He was still sort of giddy and sad and a little drunk even after they’d sat at the coffee shop getting Miranda sobered up.  Katrina had tried to set him up with a friend when she found out Jeanie wouldn’t return his calls (or his shirt), but the friend hadn’t shown up.  

“I’ll be fine,” he said, giving Katrina another squeeze.  Miranda slumped in the empty car, her stockings torn from her fall outside the club and her glitter eyeshadow rubbed over the stamp on the back of her hand.  Katrina smiled and gave him a little peck on the cheek as the train stopped.  “Happy birthday Miranda!” he called backwards, stepping out onto the platform.  

It was still a muggy night, little moths and flies buzzing around the orange lights of the open station.  Ethan stuck his hands in his pockets, glad he’d only worn a tank and no jacket.  He was—more than just a little drunk still, he realized, taking one of the steps down to main station level a little too fast.  He always drank too much around Katrina, the kind of girl he thought he’d end up with when they kissed before—well.  Before he left to join the military.  Sweet and pretty, she still flirted with him even though she was engaged now.  

Ethan rounded the steps down to the next level of the empty station, humming to himself a little until he saw the group  down the platform.  Colonials, three men and two women, drunk and being avoided by the few other passengers hurrying by them.  

He turned in the other direction, painfully aware of the glitter eyeshadow Miranda had talked him into at the beginning of the night.  “Hey _faggot_ ,” one of the colonials yelled.  Ethan straightened his shoulders and walked purposefully, like he’d learned in Fleet.  Ignore it, look like you’re going somewhere.  He should have taken the bike.  He wouldn’t have been able to drink with the girls, but at least he’d have avoided this.  

Ethan skittered sideways as a glass bottle landed and broke at his feet.  “Look at me when I’m talking to you, you fucking fairy,” the drunk yelled, advancing down the platform.  One of the men followed, the other one and the women staying behind.  Ethan dug in a pocket for his phone and quickened his pace as he kept walking away.  

He’d just pulled the phone out to start dialing when the pace of footsteps behind him changed to a run, and his heart kicked in his chest.  He broke into a run, hoping for a transit cop at the main doors.  The two other passengers on the platform scattered and other footsteps picked up into a run, the colonials following.  

Ethan turned the corner to the main station, risking a look behind him, and his feet slid out from under him on the slick concrete floor.  He landed on his back, the air going out of him and the back of his head cracking against the floor.  

He rolled to one side to push himself up, squinting down the platform with one eye against the pain in his head.  He was on one knee with the other foot under him when the first drunk colonial caught him with a poorly-aimed kick to the hip.  

“You fucking Earth pricks think you’re so important,” the colonial snarled, his friend coming up behind him.  Ethan got his feet under him again, thumbing the record on his phone in case things got even worse.  

The drunk colonial hauled Ethan up, grabbing a fistful of his shirt.  He crushed the thin chain of Ethan’s necklace into his chest, growling something incoherent with Ethan standing on tip toes.  The friend half-heartedly pulled the drunk one back, and Ethan realized the other one wasn’t colonial at all, with Earth-born white eyebrows and hair dyed dark to look colonial.  That was a thing now?

Ethan twisted in the man’s grip, craning to see if there anyone had called the cops yet, unwilling to escalate the situation by fighting back too hard.  He pried the man’s hands on his shirt, pushed backwards against a wall and close to pinned.

“Marcus,” a familiar voice slurred from behind the two colonials.  “Leave him alone.  That’s my fucking roommate.”

“Fuck you, Sacha,” the drunk snarled over his shoulder at another colonial.  Cain.  With his arm wrapped around a woman, her dyed scarlet hair showing white roots, both of them weaving a little as they came up, trailed by a colonial woman.  Or at least one with a better dye job.  

Ethan pushed against the drunk’s hands again, hoping to get out of his grip while he was distracted, and ended up shaken and thrown against the wall with a snarl.  He bounced off the tiled wall and stumbled, catching himself on one knee as the big drunk backed off.  

He rubbed the back of his head and started to push himself up when a hand reached down to help him up.  He looked up at Cain, the red haired woman standing just behind him, familiar from somewhere.  Ethan grimaced and pushed himself the rest of the way up, brushing Cain’s hand away.  

“Nice friends,” Ethan muttered.

“Where you going so dressed up?” Cain asked, fishing a cigarette out of his coat pocket.  

Ethan brushed his pants off and straightened his shirt, cranky with how relieved he felt.  Marcus was being walked away by the other man, both of them taking pulls from a bottle of liquor in a paper bag.  Just what they all needed.

“I like your eye shadow,” the red-head said shyly, putting her hand on Cain’s arm and looking at Ethan through pale eyelashes.  

“The girls wanted to go to that new club,” Ethan said, half-smiling at the woman.  He recognized her now from the strip club where Cain was bouncing.  Candi, or Brandi, or something.  She’d been wearing a green thong and not much else the one time Ethan had stopped by to pick up Cain after work.  Cain had tried to buy him a lap dance and laughed when Ethan said she wasn’t his type.  “I thought you were working tonight,” he said, looking sideways at Cain.  

“Wait, the new one, the one downtown?” the colonial woman said, looking at the stamp on Ethan’s hand and paying attention now.  “That place is impossible to get into.”   The other two men eyed him over Cain’s shoulder, and Ethan was uncomfortably aware of still being hemmed against the wall by the group of them.

“Told you he was a big fucking deal, sweetheart,” Cain said over his shoulder to the colonial woman, lighting his cigarette.  “Me ’n Abel are big fucking war heroes.”

The colonial woman rolled her eyes.  “Well, he might be, but you’re just—“

“ _You’re_ Abel?  I heard about you and your dad on the news,” the red-head squealed, coming to put her arm around Ethan’s waist.  She reached up to touch his cheek where Katrina had kissed him.  “Sacha has my number.  You should call me next time you go out.  If your girlfriend doesn’t mind.”

Abel flushed, brushing his cheek and glancing down at Katrina’s lipstick on his fingers.  “She’s not—we’re just—“

“His girlfriend won’t mind, baby,” Cain said, laughing and hooking the redhead back to kiss her neck.  She giggled, but looked at Ethan again.  Cain draped an arm across her shoulders and looked Ethan up and down.  “You on your way home?” he asked, and Ethan knew what he was actually asking.  He nodded tightly.  Cain grinned down at the redhead and kissed her on the mouth.  “I’m gonna walk the war hero home so he doesn’t get his ass kicked again, okay, baby?”  She smiled past him at Ethan, and Cain propelled her back to the little group with a pat on the ass.

Cain shoulder-checked Ethan with a smirk and they started to leave.  “Call me, Abel!” the red head called after them, and Ethan glanced back at her, blushing again.  

“You’re hot shit tonight,” Cain said, putting his arm over Ethan’s shoulders as they left the station, brushing his thumb against the smudge of Katrina’s lipstick.  

“It was just Katrina and Miranda,” Ethan said, shrugging Cain’s arm off.  They didn’t need to get picked up by the cops for public intoxication, especially since his father had gotten that law pushed through revoking veterans’ benefits after an immorality conviction.  His father and the media would love that, the senator’s son in the drunk tank with a colonial, and one made for a scandal as perfectly as Cain was.

“Which is the one with the big tits?” Cain asked, tilting his head back to blow smoke up into the creeping false dawn.  The street was quiet, after the bars closed but before the morning rush.  Ethan watched the muscles in Cain’s neck, not minding the smell of smoke or the red-head’s perfume for a second.

“Miranda, I guess.”  

“Yeah, Miranda.  I’d fuck her.”

Ethan shot Cain an annoyed glance, still not used to being around Sacha, even though it had been weeks.  Cain had moved in without talking about it, and they still fucked without talking about it.  _Long enough,_ was all Cain had said when Ethan asked how long he was going to stay.

“I thought you were working tonight,” Ethan said, changing the subject.

“I thought you were home and not out cruising for ass, so I guess we’re even,” Cain said, taking a drag on his cigarette.

“Cain.”  They got to the steps of their building and Cain stubbed out his cigarette.  They’d talked about smoking inside, at least.

“Cop touched one of the girls and I bounced him off the wall a couple times.  Manager didn’t like it and said to find another job,” Cain said as they waited for the lift.  “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, princess, there’s always another gig.”

“That’s the second job—“

Cain pushed him into the elevator as the doors opened.  “I said don’t worry about it,” and walked Ethan backwards against the wall.  Ethan lifted his chin for a kiss as the door closed, hands pulling Cain closer by his belt loops.  Cain just watched him, breathing shallow, mouth half open so Ethan could see his tongue run over his teeth.  

Ethan pushed forward, just catching Cain’s lip when the lift doors opened and Cain pulled back. He turned away with a smirk over his shoulder, leaving Ethan to follow.  He watched Cain’s ass and the muscles of his back as he slung his jacket off, not looking back as he opened the door of their flat.  

Ethan stepped into the humid dark of the apartment, eyes unadjusted after the light of the hallway, hand out sideways to look for the light switch.  He started a little as Cain came out of the dark, pinning his wrist against the wall with one hand and hauling him up with the other.  

Cain lifted him against the wall, Ethan’s legs wrapping around him, and Cain’s mouth was insistent, his hands rough.  Ethan sighed, grinding his hips forward between Cain and the wall.  He was hard already, even though it had been only—that morning?  Before he went to work, almost late to catch his train.  

He sucked Cain’s ear and they were spinning away from the wall, stumbling in the dark against some piece of furniture.  Cain lowered him down onto the sofa, draped backwards with his knees caught up by the arm of the sofa.  Ethan looked up at him in the light slanting through the balcony doors, leaning back on his elbows to watch as Cain loosened his belt buckle.  Cain smirked and leaned down, drawing Ethan towards him by the hair.  

Ethan pulled back and rearranged himself on the couch, taking his shirt off and kneeling facing Cain.  He licked his lips, breath catching as Cain placed a hand along his neck.  Ethan steadied himself with one hand on the arm of the sofa and pushed Cain’s fly open with the other.  

He pulled Cain close, taking him in his mouth, on all fours on the sofa now, ass in the air.  Cain inhaled sharply, running his hand through Ethan’s hair.  He watched Cain’s eyes close and his mouth open and close in little breaths as Ethan teased.  

Cain looked down at him then, running a thumb down the side of Ethan’s face and down his jaw to where his lips were wrapped around Cain’s cock.  Ethan shivered thinking about how he must look:  lipstick smeared across one cheek, eyes lined with purple glitter.  Cain smiled wickedly, his possessive, cruel sneer.  “You’re such a fag,” Cain said, bringing his hand back behind Ethan’s head, holding him there.

A couple of short, quick thrusts.  Shallow.  Not enough to gag him, Cain had never really been that cruel, but enough to make them both think about what it would be like if he was.

Ethan shook Cain’s hand away and pulled back to rake his teeth along the length of Cain’s cock, just light, just enough to show him who was in charge.  Cain shuddered, moaning through gritted teeth.  “Oh fuck, Abel—“  Ethan let him go with a sweet, dainty lick, and pushed himself away to lay back on the couch, kicking out of his pants and sprawling out naked.  

“So that’s how you want it,” Cain said, taking off his own shirt and climbing over the arm of the sofa after Ethan.  Cain hauled his knees up, digging his fingers into Ethan’s thighs as he brought Ethan’s knees up over his shoulder and lifted his ass up off the couch.  

Cain was rough, taking barely any time to slick his fingers and scissor Ethan open, and then he was being filled, Cain pushing into him slow.  Ethan arched his back, all his weight back on his shoulders as Cain held him up by the hips and fucked him still half dressed.  Cain closed his eyes, but Ethan watched him, Cain’s spiky hair silhouetted against the balcony door, his mouth open just a little.  

Once in a while Cain let his guard down during sex, and Ethan tried to forget about it when he saw it, because seeing Cain so open and wanting only made it hurt worse later when he shut Ethan out.  It was just sex and didn’t mean anything else.  Not to Cain, not to Ethan.  

Cain came first, bending over Ethan and burying his face in Ethan’s shoulder, rocking into him and shuddering.  Ethan wasn’t done yet, only close, so he pushed Cain’s hand down to his aching and neglected cock, and Cain kept fucking him, slower, but enough.  Ethan came into his hand, across their bellies, Cain still curled over him with his mouth on Ethan’s neck.  

They were breathing heavily as Cain pulled out of him and collapsed on his chest, both of them half falling off the couch, Ethan’s bare legs tangled in Cain’s.

“Fuck, I missed you,” Cain breathed into Ethan’s neck, and he froze, not sure if he’d heard right.  But then Cain was pulling him up, pushing him back to the bedroom, and Ethan thought he must have heard wrong, or Cain was just drunk, and it didn’t mean anything.


	6. Chapter 6

July 29

**Abel**

Ethan rearranged the things on the bathroom counter again, not interested in getting ready for this date his mother had set up with some friend’s daughter.  They’d already met at some fundraiser, and she was pretty enough, interesting enough, enthusiastic about her charity and bike racing, but—well.  Appearances had to be kept up.  At least they could talk about racing.  

He stepped into the shower finally, half listening to Cain bang around the kitchen sulkily, cursing and rattling pans.  Couldn’t be that hard to heat up leftover borscht.  Ethan rubbed the tension out of his neck, running over what else he had to talk about with—Rachel?  Rebecca.  Probably Rachel.  He’d check her message before he left.  He scrubbed shampoo through his hair, determined to be nice to her, whatever her name was.  Ethan’s father wasn’t her fault, Cain wasn’t her fault, and she was probably very nice.  

In the other room, Ethan’s phone rang for a bit.  Maybe Katrina, calling to ask if he remembered how to kiss after too many years in the military and don’t forget to tell the girl how pretty she looked.  He’d thought about telling Katrina, pretty sure that she suspected in school even if he hadn’t then, but nervous about how far it would get.  Their mothers lunched together, thick as thieves planning a wedding before Ethan had left and joined Fleet.

His phone rang again, the clattering and the cursing from the kitchen stopping as Cain picked it up.  “No sir,” Ethan heard over the water, rinsing soap out of his hair.  A military thing.  Cain had promised to make calls to line up another job.  Appearances.  Ethan had messaged his father, asking for the favor that had been offered when dear dad realized that getting Cain a good job would cut Ethan’s excuse for needing a roommate.  Cain would hate it, but he’d hate Ethan’s offer to support them both even more.

Ethan rubbed conditioner through his hair, not ready to face picking out a shirt quite yet.  “No sir.  No sir.  Yes sir.”  Cain had good manners when he bothered to use them, mostly for women or superior officers.  Ethan wondered if he’d have gotten into this mess if he’d gotten the good manners from Cain first.  

“Ethan,” Cain said, padding into the open bathroom door.  Ethan stuck his head under the water, ignoring him.  Not the time for games.  “Get out of the shower,” Cain demanded. 

Ethan snapped at him, sick of this fight over who he was allowed to see.  “Cain, I have to finish getting ready—“

The shower curtain was pushed aside and Cain reached in to turn the water off, drops of water darkening his undershirt.  “You’re not going.  Get out,” Cain said, his face hard.  

Ethan sputtered, annoyance giving way to anger.  He wasn’t much interested in going on this date, but they had to keep up appearances—

“ _Abel_ ,” Cain snapped, throwing a towel at him.  “It was your dad.  Your mother’s in the hospital.”

 

* * *

 

**Abel**

Ethan fretted on the train, flicking through race scores on his phone.  He switched back and forth between texting the girl—Rebecca—to let her know he couldn’t make it and looking at racing results.  He couldn’t keep his mind on it, and scrolled through pictures of his mother instead, breathing shallow in the rattling train car.  

She’d seemed fine last time he’d seen her.  She’d brought over a box of his things over when she cleaned out the basement, meeting Cain in his full sourness with a box of old toys, a roll of posters and a plate of cookies.  Ethan had come from the kitchen to find Cain taking the box with the charm turned all the way up, asking her if she was Ethan’s sister.  

He flicked back to racing scores, unwilling to face his father red-faced and teary-eyed.  Things would be bad enough without another lecture.  Appearances.  Bastard hadn’t left a message to give him an idea how bad it was, but it must have been bad if he’d forced himself to talk to Cain.  The lights of a station strobed through the windows as the train picked up speed.

 _He’s so handsome, Ethan.  He must be a real ladykiller.  You should be careful when you go out to pick up girls together._   He’d almost told his mother, not then, not with Cain right there so confusingly normal, but thought maybe later on the phone.  But things with his father had been in such a delicate truce since the lakehouse.  And there was really no explaining Cain.

 _Your mom is pretty hot.  You sure you don’t have a sister, princess?_   Ethan dragged his attention back to racing scores, unable to really concentrate on anything but terrible possibilities.  Whatever it was, it would be bad enough without stirring up old hurts.

Ethan walked from the station to the hospital head down, hands in pockets, walking anxiously fast and dreading every step closer.  The lobby was busy but not crowded, a few old people in wheelchairs being discharged and some visiting families looking lost.  Ethan checked for his mother’s room number on his phone and braced himself when a message from his father flashed up, hoping for good news and expecting bad.

 _Read this and tell me if you still want the favor.  Dad._ Ethan stepped into the elevator with a sad-looking man holding sad-looking flowers, and flicked through the files his father had attached.

Always something, dad.  Mom in the hospital and he still found time to disapprove of Ethan’s life.  

A mugshot of a teenaged Cain—teenaged Sacha—attached to a police report from the colonies, different piercings but the same eyes, along with a prison record and files from some—but not all—Cain’s years in the military.  Ethan put his phone away, more upset by the possibility that his father had either been able to find all this so quickly or had it to hand already than by whatever he was supposed to be upset by.  

Ethan glanced in doors as he looked for his mother’s room.  Some closed, others open with a curtain drawn or a person lying in the half dark.  He couldn’t see his mother like that.  So many people, moving, passing him in the hall to her room, with jobs to do and other things to think about.

He rounded the nurse’s station to see his father pacing alone in an empty room, tapping his phone occasionally, the blue glow in the dark room making him look even more haggard.  Ethan stepped into the room, closing the door quietly and bracing for the worst.

His father looked up, a mix of surprise and—relief?—on his face.  Ethan was pulled into an engulfing and unexpected hug.  When was the last time they’d hugged?  Years.  Handshakes only.  Hugs were for women and queers.

Ethan pushed his father back, trying to keep the hysteria out of his voice.  “Where is she?”

His father shook his head and waved at the door.  “They just took her out for a scan.  She’s stable, but they haven’t decided if they’re going to operate.”

Ethan sat down, shaken with relief and anxiety.  “Operate?”

“She had a heart attack,” his father said, lowering himself into a chair.  “They might put in a stent.”  His father kept his face in check, all business, but pain tugged on the edges of his voice.  She was too young for a heart attack.

They sat there in the dark, light from the hallway filtering through the window in the door, the bed empty beside them.  Ethan stared at the floor between his father’s shoes.  What did they have to talk about without mom there?  What had they ever talked about?

“Did you get my message?” his father asked, changing the subject.  That.  They would always have that to talk about; how disappointing Ethan was and how poorly he reflected on his father’s career.  Always that.

“I didn’t have time to read it,” he said, never intending to read it.  

“Ronald is starting that new charity—that mentorship thing for colonial kids—and he said he’d have a place for your— your roommate.  Ron needs a residential advisor for the kids, so you’d be able to stop supporting him and have your apartment to yourself again.”

Ethan shook his head.  “Dad, it’s not a big deal.  You know how it’s been for vets, lots of teams are living together to get by.”  The colonials—the fighters—were doing worse than the navigators, dropped by Fleet placement programs on Earth with a letter of recommendation and no jobs skills besides killing people.  

“You didn’t read the files.  Ethan, he was in a _gang_ —you know what they do out there in the colonies—“  Ethan had heard, the hysteria that sometimes swept through the news about gangs and initiation rape and drug trafficking in the colonies, but so little of what was on the news was true anymore, especially about the colonies, that he’d just stopped listening.  His father reached across to grab his wrist.  “Ethan, is he making you—if you don’t want—“

“What are you asking, dad?” Ethan snapped, pulling his hand away.  “Is he a rapist?  I don’t know.  He just needs a job.”  Ethan leaned back in his chair, staring up at the dark ceiling.  “Look, dad, I get it.  Having a war hero for a son isn’t useful if he’s a faggot too.  I’ll talk to him about moving out.”  

There was a tense silence.  Had he really just come out to his father?  He stayed staring at the ceiling.  “You’re a good boy, Ethan,” his father said quietly, then changed the subject without changing the subject.  “The poll numbers for this fall are looking good.  There was a charity dinner last week, and your mother said—your mother—“ His father took a deep breath, then another, leaning his head on one hand.  Ethan reached across and put a hand on his father’s.  

They sat like that in the silent dark until his mother was wheeled back in, a watery blue sketch of her self.  


	7. Chapter 7

July 30

**Abel**

Ethan stumbled home in the morning, having fallen asleep cramped in a chair at the hospital while his father went home to get more of his mother’s things.  His wrist still hurt from hanging over the railing of the hospital bed to hold his mother’s hand.  She’d slept fitfully, waking up sometimes to stroke his hair.  

At home, he leaned against the door of the apartment, eyes closed and not thinking about much until he heard movement on the balcony.  Cain, stubbing out his cigarette, leaning back in one of the little cafe chairs, feet on the railing like that first morning.  Ethan watched him blankly, his eyes sore in the hazy sunlight off the balcony after the alternating dark and harsh fluorescents of the hospital.  

Cain half turned his head then, catching Ethan’s movement as he rubbed a hand against his eyes.  He watched Cain pad in from the balcony, barefoot and appraising.  He let himself be lead out onto the balcony and sat there while Cain disappeared back into the flat, reappearing with a cup of coffee.

Just enough cream, with a little sugar.  When had Cain learned how he took his coffee?  Ethan curled around it, remembering how to act human again.  “Thought you went straight to work,” Cain said, tapping out another smoke from its pack.  There were cigarette butts scattered across the bucket of sand Ethan had set under the table, clean just a few nights ago.  Cain had been out here for a while.

Ethan shook his head.  “Called in.  I’m going back to the hospital in a few hours.”

“She that bad?” Cain asked, lighting the cigarette and passing it to Ethan.  He hesitated, their hands hanging over the table for a moment, but he took it, hungry for the acrid, guilty comfort of it.  He took a short drag of it and passed it back.  

Ethan nodded, but changed the subject.  Bad family habit.  He didn’t need to start crying out here, not in front of Cain, not in front of all the neighbors.  “My dad found a job for you,” he said, looking for a fight to distract him from the memory of how thin his mother’s hand had been.

Cain glared at him.  “I don’t need help from that fucker.”

“It’s a teaching thing downtown, a mentorship thing for colonial kids.  You’d get an apartment on site and just keep them out of trouble.” 

Cain snorted, then laughed in his face.  “Yeah.  That’d be great.  I’d make a great fucking babysitter.”

Ethan gambled on finding some part of Cain that cared about someone else.  “The program’s for kids who’d be in jail otherwise.  My dad sent me your police records.”

Cain stared at him, one of those blank, tense stares before something snapped.  “You had no fucking right—“ he said, and grabbed Ethan’s wrist without putting down the cigarette, spilling hot ash across the back of Ethan’s hand.

He pulled out of Cain’s grip, coffee sloshing a little on the jostled table.  “I didn’t say I read it.  But there’s an election coming up, and we can’t keep—“  Cain stood up and stalked back into the flat, cigarette still in hand.  Ethan followed him.  “Cain, if it gets in the papers—we can’t look like—“  Cain was in the kitchen, putting his cigarette out in the sink and scowling at the floor.  Ethan stood in the doorway, the closet sized kitchen barely big enough for one person.  “Look, you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, but we have to keep up appearances—“

“I know that, _Abel_ ,” Cain snarled, making to push him out of the doorway.  Ethan put his hands on the door frame and stood his ground.  “I didn’t come here to be your fucking rentboy, I’ll get a goddamn job if I have to beg that pansy Keeler like you did, but I’m not taking a job from your asshole father.  I’ll go back to the fucking colonies first.”  

Ethan let Cain push past him out of the kitchen then, a little stunned.  _Fucking shithole_ was the best he’d ever heard from Cain about the colonies.  He followed Cain back to their bedroom, worried this was what he’d been sitting out on the balcony thinking about.  Cain rummaged on Ethan’s side of the closet.  

“You’d really go back?” he asked, staring at the change of clothes Cain handed him.  

“That or reenlist,” Cain said, sitting on the bed to pull on a pair of shoes.  “Get changed, we’re going out for food.  At least in the colonies no one gives a shit about who you fuck.  Hurry up.”

 

* * *

 

**Abel**

Ethan picked at the food Cain had ordered for him, flirting with the little old ladies behind the counter in Russian.  Cain smoked and leaned his chair back against the wall on two legs, watching Ethan eat.  

Ethan had only been to this part of town that time with Cain and Deimos, and it made him little edgy being the only non-colonial in the restaurant’s tiny, peeling-wallpaper front room, but he was too tired to really think about it and Cain didn’t seem worried.  His mother would have liked the adventure.  His father would have rolled up the windows and locked the car doors.  

He was shaken out of that thought by warm dry hands pulling his face up and a papery kiss to each cheek.  A tiny old woman, blue-grey braids wrapped around her head, smiled at him and turned to take Cain’s face in her hands and kissed him as well.  

Cain started laughing as she came back to stroke Ethan’s hair and scolded Cain in Russian.  “What’s she saying?” Ethan asked, uncomfortable with having his ear pressed to a strange woman’s breasts.  

“She says—“ Cain choked, laughing too hard to get the words out.  “She says I should have brought you around sooner—cuter than I told her—too cute for me.  You’re too skinny.”  Ethan flushed hot.  Cain snorted.  “She thinks you can do better than me and you should eat more of your blini.”  

“Do you know her?” Ethan asked, the woman kissing the top of his head as she left.  She settled at a table of older women who smiled at them as they shuffled a deck of cards around teacakes and a samovar.

Cain took a drag of his cigarette, still smirking.  “I play cards down here after work sometimes.”  

“Oh.”  So that’s where Cain went when he didn’t come home?  “Would you really go back to the colonies?” Ethan asked, worried by how comfortable and relaxed Cain seemed here.  He didn’t look like an Alexander, or a Sacha, just Cain, but he looked like he belonged here and not in Ethan’s apartment or at the lake house.  “I’d come with you if you did go back.  If you wanted,” Ethan added, blushing at his plate, suddenly embarrassed.  Maybe that was pushing too hard.  Cain had only moved in a few months ago and they hadn’t talked about anything.  The military had been different because—well.  Because it had been.

“No,” Cain said.  Flat, end of discussion.  Ethan glanced up at him, hoping to tell from his face what was no.  Cain just smoked thoughtfully, watching him.  “You’re not going to the colonies,” Cain said finally.  “You’ve got your mom and your job and all your little navigator friends and your harem girls here.  Things are different out there.”

Ethan shook his head.  “I can get another job, and the rest doesn’t matter.”

“What about your mom?” Cain asked, eyebrows raised.  

“She’s not—“  Ethan pushed his plate away and put a hand on his eyes.  “They’ll know after the surgery,” he said, trying to make it as emotionless as his father had.  Ethan shook his head to clear it and took a drink of tea, hot and bitter even with too much sugar.  “But if—if it’s just my dad here, then I don’t have anything to stay for.”  There.  Cain had shown up on his doorstep after everything; there had to be something there.  

Cain just shook his head.  “You don’t know what it’s like.  You’re not going.”  

“If you just wanted a place to sleep, you could have stayed somewhere else,” Ethan said quietly, and it came out harsher than he’d intended.  What right did Cain have to drop into his life and move in without a word?  And then just leave.

Cain shrugged.  “I could have.  But I didn’t.  Are you going to finish your food?” he asked, putting out his cigarette and reaching for Ethan’s plate.  Ethan pushed it at him.  “Ethan,” Cain said.  Ethan crossed his arms over his chest and looked out the window, anywhere but at Cain and how happy he was here.  “ _Abel_.  Look at me.”  Ethan dragged himself back to look at Cain, leaning with one elbow on the table and a fork in one hand.  “I’m not leaving.  I’ll get a job and figure something out here.  Even if it’s babysitting.”

“You’re not going back to the colonies?” Ethan asked, embarrassed again, this time for making a scene.

“Not if you paid me to.  Drink your tea, you’re too skinny,” Cain said, cutting into the blini with the side of his fork.


	8. Chapter 8

August 2

**Cain**

Abel got the call over breakfast a few days later, his face going from worried to relieved as he sat there quiet with the phone pressed to his ear.  Sacha watched him get up from the table and reached across to take Abel’s eggs.  No sense in letting them go to waste after he’d bothered to make Abel breakfast, even if Abel wasn’t going to eat it.  

“I’ll, um, be back this afternoon,” Abel said, coming back from the bedroom with his jacket and dressed to leave.  “My mother’s getting discharged from the hospital and dad doesn’t want her to go home with just the driver there.”  He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, trying to fuss it straight.

Sacha leaned back in his chair.  “You want help?” he asked.  Abel wouldn’t be able to help anyone home, fussing with his jacket and too distracted to button his shirt straight, and with no job it wasn’t like Sacha had anything to do today.  

“You want to come?” Abel asked, like he hadn’t quite understood.

Sacha shrugged.  “If you need a hand.”  Abel swallowed and just nodded, like if he said anything else Sacha would change his mind.

They met the black state car outside Abel’s building, the driver a colonial who gave Sacha a look like he wasn’t good enough to spit at, but Abel made small talk on the way to the hospital, catching up about the guy’s kids, so Sacha glared and didn’t say anything.  They loaded Abel’s mother into the backseat on the way home, though, and Abel sat next to her, so Sacha had to sit up front with the driver and pretend he didn’t see the way the asshole turned up his nose.

And then they had to help Abel’s mother in the house together, Sacha and the driver half carrying her with her arms draped over their shoulders as Abel fluttered and opened doors and was generally useless and in the way.  Too many fucking stairs, too much house for just one family, big enough for six or eight families and their brats out in the colonies, but Abel’s mother was shorter than Abel even, where Abel got his delicate face, soft and breakable and light like a bird.  Sacha helped ease her down onto her bed and the driver was finally gone.  

But then so was Abel, going to get water and pillows and leaving Sacha there with his fragile mother.  He stood on the other side of the room with his hands in his pockets, as uncomfortable as he’d been when she’d shown up to Abel’s place with cookies and a box of Abel’s shit.

“It was very sweet of you to help, Sacha,” Abel’s mother said, half smiling at him.  She looked about ready to fall asleep, exhausted from being half carried down the stairs.  “Your parents must be very proud of you.”

“They’re—“  Sacha stopped himself, thinking about the look on Abel’s face if he made his mother upset.  “Yeah,” was all he said instead, fidgeting with the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.  Must be a balcony or garden or someplace in all this sprawling house he could get away to and smoke, since Abel pitched such a fit when he smoked inside.  Then he wouldn’t have to stand here and make small talk with this woman like he was anything besides the guy who fucked her son.

“Ethan speaks very highly of you.  I think you made the war easier on each other,” Abel’s mother said, and before Sacha could say anything or really process that, Abel’s asshole father pushed into the room, Abel following him.  

“You said he was moving out—“ Abel’s father cut himself off, coming up short to stare at Sacha.  Abel and his father carried themselves the same, Abel a couple stone lighter, but both of them trying to keep their shoulders square and win whatever argument this was on force of will.  Sacha moved to put Abel between him and Abel’s father, but didn’t touch the little blond.  Probably a good way to get the cops called if he touched Abel here.

Abel’s father looked at him, a blank, level look that Abel followed.  Weighed, measured, and found wanting.  “You can go,” the asshole said to Sacha, and turned his attention back to Abel. 

Dismissed.  Abel’s jaw worked, and he swallowed back something.  Sacha ground his teeth.  “I’ll go when Ethan’s ready,” he said.  

Ignored.  Abel’s father pretended like he wasn’t there, looking at Abel.  “Ethan.  Tell your _roommate_ he’s leaving.”  Hard, flat, like Abel’s voice would never be.

Abel looked back and forth between them.  Thinking.  Sacha cursed himself.  It had been stupid to come here.  Abel didn’t need him.  Sacha turned and left Abel there, and didn’t hear Abel say anything or come after him.  He didn’t need Abel or his bullshit family.  

 _“How_ dare _you bring him here,”_ Abel’s father’s voice carried through the house as Sacha stalked out.  _“It’s bad enough you’re living with a—a_ colonial _, but you had to bring him into our house.”_

Sacha stood on the landing to the front door, flexing his hands at his sides.  Abel said something, but he couldn’t quite hear it from here.  Not that it mattered anyway.

_“Just a friend?  A friend?  Do you think I’m an idiot, Ethan?  You think your own father doesn’t know you well enough to tell—“_

The driver showed up then, pointedly opening the front door.  Sacha snarled at him and left.

 

* * *

 

He kicked a chair over as soon as he got in the door, and dug around in Abel’s closet for where his shitty old duffel had gotten buried under Abel’s shoes and crap.  He still had Deimos’ number written down somewhere; he could crash there for a few days and figure out how to get back to the colonies, finally be done with Abel and all of his anxiety and feelings and family bullshit.  Families were too fucking complicated; the military had been simpler, when Abel hadn’t had anyone else.

He was halfway done packing his duffel when he realized this was exactly what Abel’s asshole father wanted.  Sacha gone, Abel back under control and probably married off to some girl as soon as possible.  Appearances, everything in their fucking lives was for appearances.  

But Sacha didn’t give a damn about appearances, and he wasn’t about to give Abel’s asshole father the satisfaction of chasing him off.  

There was still the babysitting gig; he’d borrowed Abel’s phone and called his asshole father’s friend about the job, since Abel had nagged him about it so much.  Ronald, Donald, whatever the guy’s name had been, had sent the  application over a few days ago.  

Sacha found it on Abel’s computer and flicked through it.  Full time.  Benefits.  Live on site and make sure the little shithead teenaged gang wannabes didn’t get their noses snotty.  Act like an asshole and keep them in line.  He could do that; just pretend like he was an instructor in basic except with less fucking the recruits.  He’d manage, since Abel would probably still need to be fucked, even if he couldn’t stand up to his father about it.  

He could do this; it was just boot camp and bouncing and keeping a bunch of little shitheads out of jail.  He hadn’t been to jail for a while, so he could probably talk the cops out of hauling someone else in just as well as he could talk them out of hauling him in.  Abel’s father’s friend didn’t seem like as much of an asshole as Abel’s father.  Just more money than brains if he wanted to rehab the kind of kid Sacha had been, but Sacha wouldn’t have to deal with him too often, from what it looked like on paper, anyway.  Just a couple of other instructors and babysitters on site, probably colonial too.  He could do this.  He got the application filled out and sent it off.

Abel came in then, looking pissed.  Not his usual pissy-annoyed look, but actually angry this time like he wanted to punch someone, and Sacha thought maybe he should have kept packing his bag instead of fucking around with this job like it would have helped anything.  

Abel came at him, and Sacha pushed himself up just in time to catch Abel’s wrist.  He hadn’t done a goddamn thing wrong.  It wasn’t his fault Abel’s father couldn’t keep his mind off who his son fucked and how, and if Abel couldn’t tell his father to back off, Sacha wasn’t about to sit there and let Abel take it out on him instead.

But the little blond got under his guard and they were kissing instead, Sacha falling back down on the couch with Abel on top of him.  Abel tore at him, pulling Sacha’s clothes off even though Abel still had his shoes and coat on, straddling Sacha and grinding desperately like it was the last fuck of his life.  Sacha was mostly naked with Abel’s hand around his cock before he really realized Abel was still dressed, on top of him and pulling Sacha’s hair to get at his neck better.  

Sacha kicked his pants all the way off, wrapped his arms around Abel and stood them both up, Abel putting his legs around Sacha’s waist.  If Abel had had the goddamn sense to take his own clothes off, Sacha could have held him up against a wall and fucked him standing, but here they were standing in the middle of the living room instead, Sacha naked and his cock rubbing against the rough fabric over Abel’s ass.  

So Sacha carried Abel to the bed like that and threw him down, going to work getting Abel’s goddamn pants off while the little blond squirmed out of his jacket and shirt.  Abel wanted it bad; he pulled at Sacha before his pants were even off, catching him off balance and rolling them both across the bed tangled in clothes half taken off.  

Sacha pulled Abel on top of him, to keep Abel’s hands and mouth occupied while he finally pushed the last of Abel’s clothes to the floor.  He got the lube from the nightstand and fucked Abel with his fingers, not doing a very good job of it since Abel wouldn’t hold still and kept trying to get a hand around Sacha’s cock, but Abel probably wanted it rough anyway, so Sacha gave up trying to get Abel lubed up and did himself instead.  

Abel tensed as Sacha pushed his cock up and Abel’s ass down, and he thought Abel might change his mind, but then the little blond pushed himself down, faster than Sacha would have made him, fast enough that it probably hurt.  Abel buried his face in the pillow over Sacha’s shoulder.  The little blond shuddered and dug his nails into Sacha’s arms, desperate and trying to drive them faster, so Sacha fucked him as hard as he could laying on his back, holding Abel’s ass in his hands.

But then Abel put a hand flat on his chest and they were fucking slow, Abel controlling the pace.  Sacha hadn’t expected that, but he hadn’t expected to be fucking Abel right now anyway, so he let Abel do what he wanted.  Sometimes Abel just needed to do this; pretend like he was in control or something, that he was doing the fucking, and Sacha got off from it anyway, just not as fast, so Abel could fuck him how he wanted and then let Sacha finish harder for the wait.  

No sound except for Abel’s hands twisting on the sheet and Sacha’s breathing as he let Abel do the fucking.  The little blond took his time, slow and shallow, so slow Sacha thought he might stop, so he pushed up into Abel, just a little, just to match his rhythm and keep them going.   He put a hand up to Abel’s face to brush the hair out of his eyes, and jerked his hand away as it came away wet.  

Sacha fisted a hand in Abel’s blond hair, pulling his face up to get a look at him.

Abel’s face was wet, the pillow was wet, Sacha’s hand was wet where he’d brushed Abel’s cheek.  Crying.  Abel had been crying into the pillow while they fucked, his eyes red and his face wet.  

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”  Sacha tried to push Abel off, not interested in fucking anymore, but Abel kept him pinned there.  

He’d never seen Abel cry, not that first time, not from sex or anything else, but here was Abel, swallowing back tears and clinging to Sacha.  He’d been so fucking careful, trying not to push too hard, trying to let Abel go as slow as he wanted for once, even if Abel liked rough sometimes—

“It’s nothing,” Abel said, putting his face back down, but turned to Sacha’s neck so he could feel how hot and wet Abel’s face was.  “Just keep going.”

“No,” Sacha snapped, and really pushed Abel off him this time.  

He’d tried looking for these buttons at first, back in the beginning when they’d just been paired together.  He’d tried to find the fastest way to hurt Abel and keep him in line, but the little blond just got stubborn and wouldn’t put out, so Sacha had found other ways to make him do what he wanted and forgot about trying to make Abel cry because it just didn’t happen.  Except it was happening now, for no fucking reason Sacha could tell.

“What the fuck are you crying about?”  He didn’t want to deal with this shit, didn’t want to deal with Abel and his feelings and whatever Abel wanted from him now.  He pushed away from Abel, frowning and watching the little blond prop himself up on an elbow.  

Abel wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, shaking his head.  “It’s nothing.  Just my dad.”

Sacha sat up.  “Your _dad_?  What the _fuck_ did he do to you?”  He’d figured Abel had daddy issues, with his neediness and wanting to be pushed around, but this was another order of fucked up that he didn’t want anything to do with.  No wonder Abel’s asshole father was so focused on who Abel fucked.  “I’ll fucking kill him—“  He started to get out of bed.

“Cain—“ Abel grabbed him by the arm.  “I need—just stay.  It’s nothing, he didn’t do anything.  He just doesn’t want me to go to the house anymore.  Or call.  He just—doesn’t want to see me again.  It’s nothing, just come back.”  Abel knuckled at his eyes again, and Sacha let himself be pulled back next to Abel.  

They sat against the headboard, Sacha stiff and uncomfortable as Abel curled against him, damp face on his shoulder.  

“What about your mom?” Sacha tried, not sure how to get Abel put back together again.  He’d always been better at taking people apart.  If he could just get Abel to call his mother and have her deal with this, then he wouldn’t have to sit here with Abel huddled against him.  Abel was a momma’s boy anyway.

Abel shook his head against Sacha’s chest.  “She just—she didn’t say anything.”  Abel pressed a hand to his mouth and shuddered.  Sacha craned his neck to look at Abel, trying to figure out what was happening.  More tears.  Abel had his eyes squeezed shut and his hand pressed to his mouth, trying to keep it in.  

Sacha let Abel sit there and shake against him, and put a hand on his back, but wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do to make this stop, so he didn’t do anything.  Abel didn’t make a sound, just shivered and pressed against him until he was done crying.

“Sorry,” Abel mumbled against his chest after a while, wiping at his face with a damp hand.  

“For what?” Sacha mumbled.  He’d mostly fallen asleep and his back ached from having Abel lean against him.  His shoulder was wet and itchy from Abel’s crying, and Abel’s damp hand brushed across his chest.  It wasn’t Abel’s fault his father was an asshole and he only had Sacha to tell about it, any more than it had been his sister’s fault she got knocked up by an asshole and babushka kicked them out.  Sometimes shitty things happened and you dealt with it, and it wasn’t Abel’s fault that he hadn’t had enough shitty things happen to him that this still seemed worth crying over. 

“For ruining it,” Abel said, his hand skimming down to the sheet over Sacha’s hip.  “We can keep going, if you want.”  Navigators and all their complicated feelings.  

Fucking was the last thing on Sacha’s mind, with Abel weepy and emotional like this, but Abel turned his damp face up for a kiss.  

Sacha pushed him away, laying them both out on their sides instead.  He could get it up again, but not with Abel crying against him and whimpering right in his ear.  He curled Abel up and pressed himself to Abel’s back, biting and sucking his neck and shoulder, but not too hard, just a little like when they fucked first thing in the morning.  Abel sounded like he needed something, and this was all Sacha knew how to give, so he tried to concentrate on getting Abel hard again instead of the wet spot on the pillow.  

He fucked Abel slow, wanting to get this over with but not wanting to push Abel over into tears again.  Abel came quickly, and Sacha told himself Abel’s breathing was in gasps and not sobs as he made himself come just after, and let Abel curl into a ball facing away from him.  He put an arm around the little blond’s chest and held him there when Abel tried to choke back tears again, ignoring Abel’s sniffles into the pillow until they both fell asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

August 6

**Abel**

They were out as a big group for drinks, but Ethan mostly ignored everyone else and sat with Katrina and Miranda, trying to act like he was having a good time.  Everyone had changed too much since school, or not changed enough, and he didn’t have anything to talk about except for Cain, or not talking to his parents, neither of which he could talk about with anyone.  Cain was disappearing somewhere again, even though he wouldn’t say if he’d gotten a job or not, but he was mostly gone while Ethan was at work, so it couldn’t have been anything too bad.  

He hoped.  He just didn’t have the energy for another fight, or to have Cain laugh at him again.

It wasn’t a bad night, but it wasn’t particularly good either.  Miranda had too much to drink and took too many bad pictures of everyone, but Katrina’s boyfriend hadn’t come, so at least Ethan had someone else to talk to.  Even if Katrina gave him a look every time he avoided saying how things were at home.  There wasn’t anything to talk about anyway.  He almost got up with Miranda when she went to get another drink, but Katrina caught him by the elbow, looking past him toward the door.

“Ethan, do you know this guy—“ someone else asked, and then there was Cain, sliding into the booth next to Ethan.

“What you drinking, princess?” Cain asked, in a suspiciously good mood.  He smelled like beer, but not cigarettes or perfume.  Everyone else eyed Cain and then pretended he wasn’t there; they didn’t have colonial friends.  Ethan didn’t know any colonials he hadn’t met in Fleet, who he didn’t see now except for Cain.  And Cain wasn’t really a friend anyway.  “I beat Marcus at cards again, your harem girls want a couple shots?”  Cain smirked at Katrina, who ignored him.

“What are you doing here?” Ethan snapped at him, trying to keep it quiet.

Cain shrugged.  “Saw your teaparty coming home from cards.  I can’t buy my navigator a beer?” Cain asked, his hand sliding over Ethan’s thigh under the table, squeezing just a little too high.

Ethan pushed his hand off.  “I’m not your navigator anymore,” he hissed, hoping no one else had noticed where Cain’s hand had gone.  “We’re just roommates.”

Cain put his arm up across the back of the booth behind Ethan, not touching, but still possessive. He always managed to do what Ethan asked without doing what Ethan wanted, finding some way to make everything about control. “Fine,” Cain shrugged.  “I’ll buy my goddamn killjoy roommate a beer instead.  What you drinking?”

“We’re having pitchers and Miranda is drinking cosmos,” Katrina cut in, and Ethan blushed, worried that she’d heard everything.  “I’ll take a shot if we’re doing a round.”

Cain looked back and forth between them, eyeing Katrina and rolling something over in his head, and Ethan got an apology ready in case Cain said something rude.  But then Cain just slid out of the booth, putting on his macho, aggressive walk as he caught sight of Miranda at the bar.

“Your roommate has a cute ass, but he’s kind of a jerk,” Katrina said, following Ethan’s look to where Cain pressed against Miranda, buying her another drink.  

“He’s just—“ Ethan stopped himself.  Cain was a jerk.  “Yeah.”

“You better watch out, he’s Miranda’s type,” Katrina said.

Ethan scowled.  “Miranda can do what she wants.”

Katrina gave him a level look.  “She can, but he’s not just your roommate, is he?” she asked quietly, watching Ethan watch Cain run his hand over Miranda’s ass, trailing his fingers just under the hem of her short skirt.

Ethan stared at her, too shocked to blush.  “He’s just—“

“Come _on_ , Ethan.  We’ve been friends since third grade, you don’t think I can tell?” Katrina said, leaning in and keeping her voice quiet, “I’m not going to tell anyone, but you can’t say you’re just friends.  I saw how he looked at you.  And your mom told my mom about what happened with your dad.”

Ethan did blush then.  He looked down at his beer.  Katrina wouldn’t tell anyone, but her mother might.  He really didn’twant to talk about this, not even to Katrina, and he really didn’t want to think about that he’d gone home and cried to Cain about it.  Cain hadn’t thrown it back at him yet, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.  

Ethan should never have let Cain stay in the first place, but there had never been much room between them for thinking or doing anything besides what Cain wanted.  

“Your mom asked my mom to invite you over for dinner on Sunday,” Katrina said.  Ethan glanced at her.  It was the first he’d heard from either of his parents since the other night.  “She said to invite your roommate, if you want to bring him.  Your dad won’t be there.” 

Ethan chewed his lip, glancing back to the bar.  Cain and Miranda were coming back, carrying shots and another pitcher of beer.  Cain slid in next to Ethan, but put his arm around Miranda.  

“I’ll think about it,” Ethan said to Katrina, and took one of the shots.  

 

* * *

 

**Abel**

“Would you just stop?” Ethan snapped at Cain as soon as they were home.  He’d been grinding his teeth all the way back from the bar to avoid making a public spectacle of it, Cain smoking like nothing had happened.  Maybe if he wasn’t so drunk and upset already it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but he’d had to sit there all night with Cain’s hand on his thigh and Cain’s other arm around Miranda, Katrina giving him pitying looks.

Cain sprawled across the couch, kicking off his boots.  He just gave Ethan an annoyed look.

“Quit flirting with Miranda,” Ethan said, even though Cain and Miranda had done more than flirt.  Ethan threw his coat at one of the chairs, glaring at it instead of Cain.  The coat just slid to the floor.  “She asked if you were seeing anyone.  Or if I cared if she stayed the night here.  You could at least wait until I’m not right there to suck her neck.”

Cain rolled his eyes, laying his head back on the arm of the couch.  “Whatever, princess.  It’s just _keeping up appearances_ ,” he said nastily, not looking at Ethan.

Ethan went to glare out the balcony doors so he wouldn’t have to look at Cain.  “You can go move in with Deimos if that’s how you’re going to do it.  I’m tired of just being the place you leave your shit.”  

“Ethan,” Cain said, sounding annoyed.  Ethan ignored him, standing there with his arms crossed.  He wasn’t going to be talked out of it this time.  Once Cain was gone he could call his mother and try to get his life put back together.  He’d call Rebecca or Rachel or whatever her name was and try to make things better with his father.  “Don’t be a little bitch about it, it’s not a big deal,” Cain yawned, stretching his back like he was bored with this already.

“Not a big deal?” Ethan demanded, his back to Cain so he could do it, trying to keep his voice even.  “It’s a big deal to Miranda, it’s a big deal to me.  It was a big deal to Deimos.  Do you ever care about anyone you sleep with, or do you just use all of us?”  

Those few days at the lake house when it had been just them, Cain had been so mellow, not so harsh and overwhelming, but this wasn’t what he’d told his father to go to hell for.  He hadn’t stood up for Cain to his father just to be treated this way in his own house, to be told to shut up and take whatever Cain felt like giving, scorn or nothing or just enough to keep him hoping.

“ _Abel_ ,” Cain snapped, his ordering voice, the tone he used to make Ethan do things in bed, and bully him about everything, and tell him what to think.  The tone that usually worked.  “It’s nothing.  Would you just calm the fuck down?” Cain said, getting up to come stand behind him, and Ethan glared at Cain’s reflection in the dark glass.  Ethan wasn’t that much shorter than Cain, but he felt trapped, hemmed in with Cain on both sides and nowhere to go.  Cain put a hand on his shoulder and bent to kiss Ethan’s neck.

Ethan pushed away from him, shrugging out from under Cain’s hands.  He wasn’t going to be talked out of it, he wasn’t going to be distracted with sex, even if he wanted to push Cain down on the couch and make him forget about Miranda and Deimos and whoever else.  He’d rearranged his whole life for Cain, and Cain couldn’t even keep his hands off Ethan’s friends for one night.  Cain had made Ethan just sit there and watch him seduce Miranda like he’d never bothered seducing Ethan, touching her in public the way Ethan wanted so badly but couldn’t ever have without losing even more, had made him just sit there and take it because of course Cain could do what he wanted and of course Ethan couldn’t do anything about it.

Cain came after Ethan and grabbed him by the shoulder, almost shaking him, but not quite.  They stood there like that in the dark living room, Ethan’s face turned away and Cain staring down at him, a hand on the back of Ethan’s neck.  

“Abel,” Cain said, pushing his fingers into Ethan’s hair, threading through but not pulling his face up.  At least not yet.  “I haven’t fucked anyone but you since we left Fleet.”  Ethan glared at the wall; it was too blatant a lie.  He didn’t believe Cain could go more than a year without pushing someone into bed, especially not for Ethan’s sake.  

Even if he wanted to believe it.  

“I’m not going to fuck anyone else,” Cain said softly, and Ethan waited for something horrible and disdainful to come after it, like that night Deimos had shown up, something to remind him that all Cain wanted from him was his body and not his feelings.  “I’m not going to fuck Miranda.  I don’t fuck chicks, I’m not going to start now.”

Ethan hadn’t expected that; he still felt awkward around girls he didn’t know.  Too much pressure to be someone else.  “You don’t?” Ethan asked, glancing up.  

Cain laughed.  Not one of his unkind, sneering laughs, just surprise.  Cain acted like he could fuck anyone he wanted and make them like it, women included, so Ethan thought he must want to.  Cain fingered the hair behind Ethan’s ear.  It was a distracted, absent gesture, too intimate, and Ethan didn’t think Cain knew he was doing it.  “No.  Have you?” Cain asked, and he just sounded curious, not like the first night.  Just a question.  No threat or mocking behind it.

Ethan shrugged, embarrassed into blushing at Cain’s bare feet.  “Just kissing, just Jeanie.  And Katrina a couple of times in school.”  

Cain laughed again, short and surprised.  “No wonder she was glaring all night.”  Cain leaned in to kiss Ethan’s neck, there and gone before he really knew it happened, warm and soft and normal. 

But then the real Cain was back.  “She know you’re a fag?” he asked.  

“Don’t call me that,” Ethan said, and tried to push Cain’s hand away, but Cain caught his wrist and held him there, wrenching his arm up and tightening his grip on the back of Ethan’s neck.  

Trapping him there, pinned with Cain watching him twist, just someone to be fucked and used and scorned.  He had to take that from his father and everyone else, but from Cain it was just another control thing, another way of reminding them both who needed who and who did the taking.  Who the faggot was.

_Just because we fucked doesn’t mean we’re in love._

_Don’t be a little bitch about it._

_Abel’s nobody._

It wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth being cut out of his parents’ lives, not for this.  Cain frowned down at him, thinking about something, thinking about what to make Ethan do for being defiant, and he shied away, close to tears but determined not to let Cain throw the other night back at him.  It was his own fault for wanting things Cain wouldn’t give, and now he was stuck with all the bad choices he’d made or let Cain make for him.  

Stuck with Cain.

“Abel, I’m sorry,” Cain said, almost a question, like he wasn’t sure he was supposed to say it, or how it was supposed to sound.  Ethan glanced at him, wary, waiting for something scornful and cutting to come after it.  Cain just shrugged, frowning and not quite looking at Ethan.  “I’m sorry I fucked up your life.  I’m not very good at this,” he said.  

“What?” Ethan asked, confused and distrustful.

“Being nice?” Cain said.  He frowned down at his feet.  

That was too much, too intimate, with Cain’s fingers in his hair and close, holding instead of trapping, his grip on Ethan’s wrist and neck not so tight.  Ethan shrugged away then, and Cain let him.  “No, you’re not,” Ethan said, ignoring Cain’s glare.

“Fine,” Cain snapped.  “Go to bed then, I’ll come back for my shit in the morning,” Cain said, but he just stayed standing there, not moving, scowling at the floor.  

Waiting for something.  

Waiting, Ethan realized, to be told to get out.  Cain didn’t want to leave, had maybe never wanted to.  Ethan went to sit on the couch, leaning back and staring up.  Over thinking everything.

“Do you ever try?” Ethan asked to the ceiling.

“What?”

“To be nice.”  

Cain didn’t say anything, so Ethan glanced back at him.  Cain stood spotlit in the light off the balcony, the brightest spot in the dark apartment, shifting his weight on his feet and not looking at Ethan.  Guilty, or angry, or just drunk and stubborn, Ethan couldn’t tell.

“Sometimes?” Cain said finally, and it was so unexpectedly hopeful Ethan laughed.  He was drunk, he couldn’t help it.  

Like sometimes was the best Cain could do and he didn’t want to admit that he even tried in the first place.  Like sometimes was more than he actually did try, but he wanted Ethan to feel better about it.  

Cain really was bad at this.  Ethan laughed again at the thought.

“Do you have to be a dick about it?” Cain pouted.  It just made Ethan laugh harder, and then Cain was laughing too, scowling and trying to act like he wasn’t.  “You’re such an asshole,” Cain said petulantly, tackling Ethan and they were drunk and falling off the couch, tangled up and lying out on the floor, Cain on top but straddling Ethan.  

Like the last time Cain had let Ethan fuck him.  The last time they’d had sex before Cain left for the colonies without a goodbye.

“Fuck, Abel, I’m trying, I don’t know how to deal with this bullshit,” Cain said, frowning down at him.  

Ethan swallowed and took a breath, distracted by Cain’s closeness and the heat of him.  

He hoped Cain couldn’t feel him getting hard; he was thinking about that last time, so long ago.  He couldn’t help it, too distracted by this new painful vulnerability to think about how angry he’d been.  He took another deep breath and tried to keep his mind off it; Cain probably wouldn’t appreciate it.  Cain hated being so vulnerable, hated letting Ethan be so close during sex, hated kissing while they did it that way so much that Ethan always wondered why Cain ever let him do it, but here was Cain, leaning over him, hands on either side of his head and so close, the smell of beer and Ethan’s borrowed cologne on him disorienting.

 _Fuck, I missed you._  

That hadn’t meant anything.  

Ethan kissed him anyway, catching Cain by surprise, desperate to hang on to this closeness.  Ethan teased at Cain’s lips, soft and cool, looking for Cain to push back and take control again, wanting to feel Cain need him and want him, even if it was just sex.  Even if it was only sex, at least it would be something, a way to make Cain admit he wanted something, to admit that he’d come back for something besides proving he could still control Ethan after all this time.

Cain just froze there, not really responding, but not resisting either.  

He didn’t pull away, though.

So Ethan put a hand in his hair to pull him closer, not rough, not the way Cain did it to Ethan, but just enough.  He needed this so badly, needed to know what he’d thrown away twenty years of hiding from his father for and if it was worth it.

He kept Cain close with one hand and unbuttoned Cain’s jeans with the other, drunk enough to be clumsy, but he needed to be fucked hard, needed to see Cain close his eyes and moan, needed to feel Cain get hard against him.  His fingers brushed Cain’s stiffening cock, too awkward an angle to get his hand around it and stroke Cain harder.

Cain pulled away then, sitting back to frown at Ethan.  “You’re a sloppy drunk,” Cain said, wiping his mouth.

Ethan laughed and tried to pull Cain back down, but Cain pushed his hands away and pulled Ethan’s shirt off, back to crabby and aggressive instead of strangely reluctant.  Cain pushed Ethan down when he tried to sit up to kiss, unbuttoning Ethan’s jeans and kneeling between his legs, still dressed himself as he bit Ethan’s hip, the pain of it shooting up his side and covered by the wet, hot trail of Cain’s mouth down his hip.

Cain was good at this, even if he wasn’t good at being kind or even halfway polite, his fingers digging into Ethan’s thigh through the denim while his other hand followed his mouth down the length of Ethan’s cock.  Too slow, maybe thinking about what he was going to do to make Ethan beg for it, thinking about how to take back control after Ethan had pulled him into kissing and pushed him into apologizing.  Ethan twisted his fingers in Cain’s hair, trying not to think about anything but the hot feeling of Cain’s tongue tracing circles and the sudden tightness in his chest and whole body as Cain almost swallowed him, pulling a moan out of him.  

He wasn’t going to last long enough, and he wanted Cain closer than this, needed to feel Cain on him, in him, wanted to feel Cain moan into his shoulder again.  “Cain, please—“ Ethan gasped, shuddering as Cain moved to bite his hip again and look up at him.  Ethan shook his head as Cain went to keep sucking him, and watched with shallow breaths as Cain sat up and pulled off his shirt.  

Cain stood to push off his pants; Ethan knelt in front of him to hang on to the warm, bitter smell of him.  Cain moved slow, like they’d never done this before and he wasn’t quite sure how far he wanted to go, but Ethan pulled him close and kissed the hollow of his bony hip to show how bad he wanted this.  He’d beg for it if Cain made him, he’d wait and let Cain fuck him however he wanted if Cain would just look at him and make it worth it.  

Cain didn’t say anything, though, didn’t fist his hand in Ethan’s hair or hold him there, didn’t let Ethan keep kissing his hip.  He pulled Ethan up, so they were kissing standing, too intimate with Cain naked against him, one hand in his hair and one hand on his waist, too much like earlier, and it made Ethan nervous.  

He ran a shaky hand down Cain’s side and thigh, and back up over the warm curve of Cain’s ass, just to see how much he was being allowed tonight.  Cain’s hand tightened in his hair, but he still didn’t say anything.  So Ethan let his hand rest there, burning with Cain’s mouth on his neck now.  It was too warm, claustrophobic in the circle of Cain’s arms.

Ethan didn’t even realize he’d been pushing into Cain until they were stumbling against the couch, Cain going down but Ethan keeping his balance.  Too drunk.  Cain glared up at him as Ethan finally got out of his own pants, climbing naked after Cain and they were kissing again, Cain dragging it out for some reason.  Cain leaned back against the arm of the couch, Ethan straddling Cain this time, and he thought about just sucking Cain off instead, but he wanted so badly to be fucked and Cain put a hand in his hair to stop him anyway.  Dragging it out, delaying for some reason without the teasing and the mocking when he made Ethan wait for it.

But then Cain finally leaned down to get the little bottle of lube they’d hidden under the couch, and it was Ethan’s turn to freeze as Cain turned under him, rearranging them so that Ethan was behind him, Cain pushing his ass up against Ethan.  Cain dragged Ethan’s face to his shoulder, rough and a little clumsy as he reached behind himself with the other hand to slick Ethan’s cock.

Ethan put a hand to Cain’s shoulder, off balance and disoriented, worried that Cain thought he had to apologize this way and didn’t really want to do it, that Cain had been delaying to put it off, doing it because he thought Ethan wanted it this way.  

Which he did, but not if Cain thought he had to do it.  

“Cain, we don’t—“ Ethan started, but Cain cut him off with a rough kiss over the shoulder.  Cain’s hand on his cock was gone then, Ethan’s hands somehow on Cain’s waist.  There was a moment of vertigo as everything twisted and Ethan thought about all the times it had been the other way, Cain behind him and biting, but Ethan’s mouth was on Cain’s shoulder, warm and smooth, and it was like all the times he’d fantasized about this alone last year, Cain pulling him closer with a hand on his thigh, impatient and hard as Ethan skimmed a hand around Cain’s waist to stroke his cock.  

“We can do it another way, you don’t have to—“ Ethan said into Cain’s shoulder, even though he wanted this more than he’d realized with Cain straddling him, but he had to make sure, had to be certain Cain wanted this and didn’t think he had to do this to keep from being kicked out or because he had to apologize.  Ethan couldn’t stand the thought of Cain feeling trapped here, the thought of pushing Cain into doing something he didn’t want worse than feeling trapped by Cain himself.

Cain dragged Ethan’s head up by the hair, making it so he had to be pressed against Cain’s back to meet Cain’s mouth, hard and pushing Ethan’s mouth open, and Ethan shivered against him.  Cain still had the bottle of lube, and slicked the fingers of Ethan’s free hand with it.  Then they were done kissing, too much intimacy as Cain arched his back against Ethan’s pushing fingers.  

He should have taken more time for it, Cain shuddering as Ethan took his fingers away and then pressed into him, but Cain didn’t say anything or make a sound.  Cain leaned with a hand on the arm of the couch, pressing himself back as Ethan eased into him, stroking Cain slowly.  It was too much, more overwhelmingly tight than he’d remembered, and he just wanted to hold on to that feeling forever, of Cain leaning back into him.  

Ethan breathed slowly into Cain’s shoulder; they’d never done it this way before and when Cain fucked him from behind it was usually so fast and hard he couldn’t think straight.  Cain leaned down away from Ethan, and he could see why Cain wanted him that way sometimes: it was too much power, so easy to just grab Cain by the hips and drive into him, all that control over someone else, so tempting to push Cain down and make him beg for it, for all the times he’d made Ethan beg, or flinch away, or remember who was in control.

The responsibility of it was too frightening, Cain’s vulnerability too much to think about, so he pulled Cain back to him, pressing his cheek to Cain’s warm back and sliding his hand down Cain’s cock in slow, long strokes in rhythm as Ethan rocked into him.  Ethan tried to control his own breathing to make it last longer, listening to Cain’s breath come faster through clenched teeth, concentrating on rolling his palm over the slick head of Cain’s cock the way Cain liked it, taking his time to make sure and stroke him hard enough like they did in the shower sometimes.  

He needed Cain to want this, needed him to come like this, just needed him so badly that it didn’t matter they couldn’t kiss like this as long as Ethan could press his face to Cain’s back and hold him close with an arm wrapped around Cain’s chest.  Ethan came first, though, not able to keep it back any longer, shuddering as Cain reached back to pull him closer with a hand on his ass, fingers blunt and digging into his thigh.  He stayed there, pressed against Cain, pressed into him until Cain pushed him back to lie down on the other side of the couch.  

Ethan lay there bonelessly as Cain rearranged them, his joints loose and ready to be fucked however Cain wanted him.  But Cain just straddled him again, leaning over him and frowning down as Ethan watched him, sleepy and confused about what Cain wanted.  So he reached up to stroke Cain’s cock, making him startle back a little, and Ethan wondered why Cain was so surprised Ethan still wanted him, watching Cain bite his lip and close his eyes enough to make everything worth it.  Cain rocked into his hand, leaning down to bite Ethan’s neck as Ethan gripped him harder, and then he moaned for the first time, quiet and tentative like he wasn’t sure he was allowed, sighing into Ethan’s neck as he came.

Cain’s joints were stiff, but Ethan pulled him down, not minding the stickiness between them to have Cain on him.  Cain’s earring dug into his collarbone, though, and Ethan pushed him off before they could fall asleep drunk and stupid on the couch, pulling him up to stumble back to bed.


	10. Chapter 10

August 8

**Abel**

“Cain?”  Ethan called as he came in the door, slinging his jacket off in the entryway.  The dinner at Katrina’s parents hadn’t gone as badly as it could have, but it didn’t go very well, either, everyone avoiding talking about why his father wasn’t there and why Cain wasn’t there and why Katrina’s mother had been asked to invite a colonial in the first place.  Avoiding talking about why Ethan was such an embarrassment to everyone now.

 _Not going._   Cain had refused to even talk about going to dinner, just got stubborn and said he had shit to do.  Ethan hadn’t bothered asking what.  Didn’t really want to know, in case they had a fight about it.

At least he’d gotten to see his mother again.  She was still weak from the surgery, and Katrina and her parents all awkwardly excused themselves to do dishes after dinner, even though they had a dishwasher, just for an excuse to leave Ethan and his mother to talk.  She didn’t say much, just that his father needed time to think, but avoided talking about what his father needed to think about or why they had to quietly avoid talking about it in someone else’s front room in the first place.  So he’d changed the subject, asking about her next charity event, and tried to not think about it after he left to go home alone.

And then this.  

Cain’s packed duffel sat in the middle of the floor, just dropped there like the night he’d shown up.  Ethan stared at it.  “What are you doing?” he asked as Cain came out from the kitchen and stuffed the bottle of vodka into his bag.

“Moving out,” Cain muttered, frowning at the bag.  “You can tell your parents you kicked me out for banging your girlfriend or something.”

“Oh.”  Ethan frowned at the floor, to avoid having to watch Cain pack.  He would have offered to help, if it didn’t look like Cain had mostly finished anyway.  Just his duffel, barely more than he’d shown up with.  

Like he really had only stayed the night.

“Fuck, Abel, I got that babysitting job you had such a hardon for, don’t look at me like I kicked you in the gut.”

“Oh.”  Ethan stood there, watching Cain rearrange things in his bag so the bottle would fit.  “Do you need, um, dishes or anything?”  A stupid question, but he didn’t know what else to say.  He couldn’t really ask Cain to stay after he’d told him to apply for the job.  He just hadn’t thought anyone would actually want Cain to work with children, colonial or not.

“The place has all that shit,” Cain said, frowning at the duffel.  He glanced up at Ethan and glared back down at the bag.  “Thanks, though.  Grab your coat, we’re leaving in a minute.”

Ethan just stood there.  He’d pushed too hard the other night, taken advantage of Cain’s vulnerability and asked for too much.  He hadn’t really expected it to end like this, though, not sure how Cain meant things to be.  Not sure this would fix anything with his father anyway.

Cain stood up and frowned at Ethan, digging in his pocket for something.  “You know what, fine, if that’s what you want.  I never should have shown up here in the first place.  Here’s your keys back,” Cain said, holding out the extra set of keys to the apartment Ethan had gotten made for him.

Ethan shook himself then, trying to focus on what was happening and not what he was afraid of.  “Uh.  Keep it.  I’ll get my jacket.”  Cain frowned at his back.

The train ride over was awkward and quiet, Cain scowling out the window and fidgeting with something in his jacket pocket, maybe Ethan’s keys.  He wondered if Cain would try to give them back again.  Wondered if he should just take them.  

Instead he concentrated on memorizing the train stops so he’d know how to get home.  Or maybe how to get to Cain’s new place, if he was invited back.

The building was on the edge of the colonial part of town, not in a bad neighborhood, but close enough to be uncomfortable.  Cain said hello to a couple of colonial boys and a man playing video games in the main room.  It was an institutional kind of place, sort of a mix between a halfway house and a school, but Cain walked like he knew it, like he knew everyone there, like he belonged there, and the kids seemed to like him, even if they watched Ethan like they were figuring out how fast they could get his wallet off him.  Not the kind of place he would want to be alone after dark.  But then they were climbing stairs, three, four flights, the hallways narrow with florescent lights and grey carpet.  

The apartment was just a studio, bare and sort of lifeless like a dorm, or a barracks.  A little table and two chairs, a kitchenette, a little desk and a bed, that was all.  Ethan thought for a second he should bring flowers next time he came, so there would be some color in the place, but Cain would probably just laugh.  

Cain took the vodka out of his duffel and slung the bag onto the floor, just left it there for Ethan to step over.  Cain put the bottle in the freezer, some groceries already in it.  He must have known about this before Ethan had left for Katrina’s parents’, getting things ready and not saying anything about it.  

Ethan wondered if Cain would have just left without saying anything again if he hadn’t come home when he did.  Wondered if he would have just come home to an empty apartment and his keys gone, or worse, left behind without a note.

Cain came back, digging in his pocket.  Ethan told himself this time he’d just take his keys back and get it over with.  “Here,” Cain said, and shoved a new set of keys and a scrap of paper with a phone number at Ethan.  “Show up when you feel like.  I have to tuck in the little brats at curfew, but otherwise I’ll be around.”  Ethan took it, staring, not quite understanding.  Cain glared.  “That’s my only spare key, so don’t fucking lose it.”

“Oh.”  Ethan put the keys away carefully, tucking the phone number into his wallet to put in his phone later.  He wondered if Cain would actually answer it.

“Come on, we’re having a drink and then we’re going to bed,” Cain said, pushing him by the shoulder.  

“I should go.  I, um, have to work tomorrow.”

“I know, I packed some of your shit.  I’m doing laundry tomorrow anyway if you want to leave your other stuff here.”  

“Oh,” Ethan said.  Laundry.  Ethan wondered if Cain had ever done laundry before.  He must have at some point, since he whined and redid the folding when Ethan did his shirts wrong, but Ethan had never actually seen him do laundry.  He watched Cain push groceries around the bare fridge, milk and microwaveable pirogies, throwing open cabinets to look for glasses.  Ethan stood there in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets.  

Cain handed him a glass of milk and vodka, and Ethan managed one sip.  It was thick, and too sweet, and smelled horrible.  “This is awful,” he coughed.  Not the kind of thing he’d thought Cain would drink, with how bitter he took his coffee.

“Better than the floor cleaner you drink,” Cain said, taking the glass from him with a lazy smile.  “There’s gin and tonic in the cabinet if you want something else.”

Cain draped himself across the bed, sitting against the wall with one foot out in front of him and the other knee up with his glass resting on it, watching Ethan decide.  Ethan sucked his lip, but went to make himself a drink.  At least then he’d have something to do with his hands, something to think about besides Cain watching him.  He spilled a little gin on the counter.

Cain didn’t move as Ethan settled next to him on the bed, not touching.  Awkward, like when he’d tried to make friends at academy and didn’t know what to say, and they both just stared at the far wall and drank.  Nothing to talk about, no classes or homework or sports to make small talk about.  Nothing but them.

“You can, um,” Ethan started, feeling as awkward as he had when he’d gotten drunk with Miranda last Valentine’s and then gone home to leave that embarrassing message for Cain, lonely and desperate after a year of no word.  He wondered if Cain had actually listened to those messages, or laughed, or just deleted them.  Cain watched him sideways, not saying anything, not making this any easier.  Ethan took a breath and pushed on.  “You can come home whenever you, um, when you have time.  If you want.”

Cain just grunted and took a drink, not saying anything.  Maybe the other night had been too much, but Cain had given Ethan keys and brought him here.  Cain would never say anything if he didn’t have to, but sometimes Ethan could pull half an answer out of him if he tried.  

Sometimes the half answer was even worth having.  “What are we going to do?” Ethan asked, fidgeting with his glass nervously.  “After tonight, I mean.”

“Fuck, Abel, I don’t know,” Cain snapped.  “You can make your parents happy and get married to some chick who wants to bang you with a strapon, I don’t care.”  Cain glared at his glass.

“Oh.”  Ethan blushed and pulled his knees up, embarrassed.  He sucked at his bottom lip, thinking.  Wondered if he’d still let Cain push him around and snap at him like this if all they did was have sex, when Cain called, when Cain wanted.  Probably.  Ethan sipped at his drink to avoid having to say anything else.

“Do you have to talk about this now?” Cain said, not so harsh as last time.  “You wouldn’t be so fucking miserable all the time if you didn’t over think everything.”

“Oh,” Ethan said.

 

* * *

 

**Cain**

Sacha was done with this shit.  Abel over thought everything; he only shut up for two minutes together when he was busy being fucked.  

 _After tonight_.  Like there was a fucking answer for that.  

So he took Abel’s glass away and put it on the floor with his own, and turned to take Abel’s mind off it.  Abel gasped at the bite Sacha gave his neck, but sank into it, leaning in as Sacha brushed his hand down under the hem of Abel’s shirt.  He was still so different in civilian, skinny and breakable but not so out of reach anymore.  Right where he should have been, right where Sacha wanted him, distracted from thinking too much and getting hard with just a couple bites, almost too easy.  His mouth tasted bitter and clean from the gin, and Sacha was going to—

A knock at the door.  Fuck.  

Sacha glared at Abel and tugged his shirt back down, Abel sitting up and trying to fuss the hem of it straight as Sacha got up to get the door.

“What you want, Isaac?” Sacha asked the boy standing there, maybe thirteen and trying to look tough instead of nervous in clothes two sizes too big.  A week of training bullshit and Sacha mostly remembered all the little shits’ names and to not swear at them too often.

“Gregor won’t let me play video games til I finish my homework, and he said you were good at math in basic,” Isaac said.  Gregor.  He didn’t seem like an asshole.  Another fighter, he knew what it was like to join up at fifteen to get out of the colonies and then get discharged with no one who knew you or wanted you or needed you but a navigator who didn’t understand anything.  But Sacha would get Gregor back if he thought it was a good joke to cock block the new guy his first night.

Sacha glanced over his shoulder at Abel, who was trying to smooth his hair down from where it had gotten mussed with Sacha’s fingers in his hair.  Abel could wait a few minutes.  At least with the kid here he didn’t have to deal with Abel’s feelings.

Isaac spread his book and computer across the little table, crappy old shit that was probably older than him since the money was stretched so thin.  Plenty of money floating around to get Abel’s asshole father reelected but not enough to buy some goddamn textbooks.  Sacha pushed that away as he pulled a chair next to Isaac, ignoring Abel getting up to wash their glasses.

Sacha frowned down at the book, letting Isaac explain what he was having trouble with, but it had too many letters in it to be math.  He could do fractional velocity changes and target distances in his head no problem, but didn’t recognize this.  “Abel, what the fuck is this?” Sacha snapped over his shoulder, not wanting to admit he didn’t know what the fuck this was, but unwilling to embarrass himself trying to explain it with Abel there to hear him fuck up.  All that math they made the navigators learn had to be good for something besides cheating at cards.

Abel came to stand behind Sacha’s chair, warm and a little skittish like the other night, peering down at the book and acting like he couldn’t see Isaac’s scowl.

“It’s just quadratics,” Abel said quietly, like that was supposed to mean anything.  He glanced at Sacha, eyebrows raised.  “Didn’t you ever learn how—“  Sacha tried to shut him up with a glare, but Isaac cut him off first.

“I don’t need help from your girlfriend, Sacha,” Isaac said snottily.  “I’m not a fairy, I’m not going to be a navigator.”

Abel pulled back like he’d been slapped, his eyes big and his lips pressed together.  Nobody gave a shit who you fucked in the colonies, so long as you were the one doing the fucking and not getting fucked.  Another reason Abel wasn’t going to the colonies; Sacha was a bastard, but he wasn’t going to put Abel through that.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Sacha snapped at Isaac, cuffing the little brat across the back of the head.  Not too hard, just enough to make a point.  Gregor brought his old navigator around to stay the night too; Sacha wasn’t going to take any attitude about it from these little shits.  “You remember the navigator who saved my ass?” Sacha demanded, frowning.  Less than a week and he was already getting sick of telling that story; Gregor had warned him about that.  The little brats were so desperate for attention and a way out of their crappy lives in the colonies that they hung on any kind of story, but especially ones about Fleet, just like Sacha had at that age.  At least so far Sacha and Gregor were the only veterans on staff, and besides stories about his own shitty childhood, Sacha didn’t have other stories anyway.

“You shot a guy in the face?” Isaac asked Abel, skeptical, but he’d begged to hear that story again and again just as much as any of the rest of the brats.  They liked all the shooting and crashes and Abel’s punching that Colteran out of nowhere, finally getting a spine when it mattered.

Abel just glared at Sacha.  Abel hated that story; he still woke up with nightmares about it sometimes, but Sacha thought it was a pretty good story.  With the part about Sacha passing out useless left out.

When Abel wouldn’t answer, Sacha answered for him.  “So show some fucking respect and apologize, you little brat.”

Isaac scowled at the table, surly and prideful and embarrassed; Sacha knew that feeling pretty well, but that didn’t make him sympathetic.  This wasn’t the colonies.  Things were different here, and Sacha and Isaac both just had to deal with it.  “Sorry, Mr. Abel,” Isaac finally muttered.  Sacha got up to push Abel down in his chair.  

Isaac and Abel both looked up at him, horrified.  Sacha shrugged and took out his cigarettes.  Just like basic, you had to do shit you didn’t want to sooner or later, so might as well get it over with sooner.  “Fucking quadratics,” Sacha said, waving at the book and getting his cigarette lit.  Abel glared at him and he knew he’d pay for smoking inside later, and especially for making Abel deal with the little shit, but Abel started in on explaining what all the letters meant. 

Sacha smoked slowly by the window, to at least not blow it in Abel’s face, but he wasn’t going to be told what to do in his own place, now that he didn’t have to deal with Abel nagging him not to put his feet on the table and to take off his shoes when he came home.  He didn’t much like moving out, but at least he could leave his fucking shoes wherever he felt like now.

He watched Abel and Isaac, mostly to make sure Isaac didn’t say anything else snotty, but Abel was good at this, excited about explaining things once he got over being offended, and it sucked Sacha in as much as it did Isaac.  Mostly he watched Abel’s hands as he tried to explain things, but it had always drawn him in watching Abel feel so much about something, didn’t matter if it was sex, or Abel’s stupid motorcycle, or fucking quadratics.  

Abel only broke his concentration once, when Sacha leaned down to see something over his shoulder, and Abel startled away before Sacha realized he’d brushed Abel’s shoulder with his fingers.  Sacha kept his hand there, pressed flat against Abel’s back, just for the feeling of Abel’s muscles tensing under his shirt.  Sacha knew plenty of teams who were shacked up together; Gregor and his navigator weren’t subtle about it, so Sacha wouldn’t be either.  The little brats would get over it eventually, and so would Abel’s father, and so would Abel.  They didn’t have a goddamn thing to be ashamed of, and Sacha wasn’t going to act like they did.

Isaac finally had his homework done, but still no manners.  He gathered up his book and computer without looking at Abel.  “Thanks, Sacha,” Isaac said, like Sacha had done a fucking thing besides smoke and ask some questions to keep Abel going.  “You going to come play video games?” Isaac asked hopefully.

“Isaac,” Sacha said, in the tone he used to make Abel pay attention and get his head out of his ass.

It always worked on Abel, and it worked on Isaac.  “Thank you, Mr. Abel,” Isaac monotoned, surly but obedient enough to not roll his eyes and be an asshole about it.  Sacha pushed him out the door then; he’d talk to Gregor and deal with the rest later when Abel wasn’t sitting there glaring daggers with his panties in a twist.

He flipped the lock behind Isaac and turned back to Abel, who just watched him go to the sink to put out his cigarette.  “You’d be a pretty good dad if you found a chick who didn’t mind you wearing her lipstick,” Sacha said, just to watch Abel squirm and get embarrassed.  Sacha leaned back on the little kitchen counter as Abel frowned down at the table, blushing.  

He knew Abel wasn’t ever going to get married; Abel liked cock too much and he was too much of a pansy to live with a chick and lie to her about it just to make his father happy, but Sacha liked to keep Abel on his toes.  And blushing had always looked good on Abel.  

“You can’t let the little brats see when they get to you,” Sacha said when Abel wouldn’t take the bait.  He’d rather just tease Abel, but wasn’t going to see anyone else push Abel around for being fucked how he wanted.  “They just push your buttons to keep from showing they’re scared of doing something different.”  

Abel looked up at him then, an odd, thoughtful look on his face like when he turned equations over in his head.  Like Sacha was a problem Abel thought he might know how to solve now.  

Sacha didn’t like that look.  

He started to pull Abel up and back to bed to distract him from that, but then he was being pushed back against the kitchen counter with Abel’s mouth on his neck.  Sacha’s reflexes had been getting shitty, letting Abel get under his guard and drag him out of his clothes the other night and now this.  Abel’s nails dug into the skin of his hips, blunt little circles moving back to cup Sacha’s ass.  Abel was getting bold, dragging Sacha’s face down to bite his ear.

Sacha gave half a thought to letting Abel fuck him again, part so Abel would calm the fuck down and not worry so much every time they fucked that way, part because he’d forgotten how good it was with Abel, slow enough to make him crazy, but so needy and tentative that Abel never forgot who was in control.  

Not that a good reminder wouldn’t hurt, to show Abel he didn’t know how to solve or fix Sacha or whatever the fuck he’d been thinking.  Sacha spun them, pushing Abel up against the kitchen counter and hauling him up to sit on it.  Abel leaned back with his eyes closed as Sacha pushed his knees apart, moaning as Sacha pressed his palm to Abel’s crotch, rolling his hand back and forth.  

Abel was blushing again, this time from getting hard spread out here on the kitchen counter like a whore, Sacha getting hard just watching Abel suck his lip.  He loved watching Abel’s mouth, loved getting Abel off, loved seeing Abel moan with Sacha in him.  Sacha pulled Abel’s shirt off him, then went after getting Abel’s pants off him as Abel kicked his shoes to the floor.  Abel’s stupid, tight, trendy jeans made his ass look good, but they were a pain to get off him, Sacha trying to keep Abel from falling off the counter naked as he pulled them off.  Abel just laughed like an idiot, pulling Sacha back and kicked them off himself.  

Sacha went back to stroking Abel, getting him moaning instead of laughing, and pulled Abel just to the edge of the counter, grinding into him to keep him there.  The lube was too far away, still packed in Sacha’s duffel with Abel’s shit, so he let Abel suck his fingers, wishing it wasn’t just his fingers Abel had his mouth around, but the look on Abel’s face as Sacha scissored him open was worth it and would be even better when Sacha fucked him standing like this.  

Abel winced a little as Sacha made him roll his hips back and lean on his tailbone, but forgot about it as soon as Sacha undid his fly and pressed himself into Abel.  The kitchen counter was just the right height, and Sacha leaned a hand on the cabinet over Abel’s head to keep from just falling over on him.  Abel stroked himself, watching Sacha’s face, and Sacha growled, digging his fingers into the skin of Abel’s ass to keep his balance as he fucked Abel harder.  He should never have gone back to the colonies, not when he could have been fucking Abel that whole time.  

Abel wrapped his legs around Sacha’s waist, trying to pull him deeper and slow them down.  Always slower, always deeper, Abel would be happy to just be fucked all night with a stick if it was lubed good enough.  Sacha put that thought away for later and grabbed Abel’s ass, lifting him up, pulling him away from the counter, all Abel’s weight on Sacha’s hips. 

And fuck was that deep, so good Sacha leaned his forehead on Abel’s chest for a second as he held Abel there, too close to coming to think straight.  Abel adjusted his arms around Sacha’s shoulder, hands twisting in his shirt, and that brought Sacha back to himself.  He slid out of Abel, taking Abel’s weight in his arms and shoulders as he fucked Abel slow to make sure the little blond could take this before fucking him good and hard.

Abel bit his ear and that was all Sacha needed.

Sacha used Abel’s weight and his tight thighs to fuck him standing, pumping his hips up into Abel, leaning back to keep his balance and watch Abel gasp, being slid up and down on Sacha’s cock.  Faster, the way Abel liked it sometimes, when he wanted to be a little slut and do what he was told.  Sacha slapped Abel’s ass, hard, wishing he could see the bright red mark it made.  Marking Abel, marking him as Sacha’s, almost as good as biting his lip open again.

He almost lost his balance as Abel arched his back, coming hard, his back and thighs going stiff.  Sacha held him there, watching Abel’s skinny chest heave as he came down from it and curled against Sacha’s shoulder.

Sacha carried him to the bed like that and threw Abel down; he was tired from it too, but he wasn’t finished with Abel yet.  He stripped and climbed after Abel, who lay there bonelessly like he’d fall asleep if Sacha just let him.  

Abel curled away towards the wall and pressed his ass back against Sacha, though, still game even after getting his.  Sacha purred into his shoulder and stroked Abel’s arm, wrapped around him and fucking him soft and slow the way Abel liked it in the morning, as a reward for being so good.  Abel would never have been so interesting if he didn’t want it so bad, if he didn’t want Sacha so bad.

Sacha came then, shaky from holding Abel up so long, pulling Abel close and grinding his teeth to keep from moaning into Abel’s shoulder.  Abel stroked his thigh, his fingers warm.  Sacha pulled out of him but stayed there, tired and right where he wanted to be.

He could have slept like that forever.  Arm around Abel and warm ass pressed against him.

“Cain?” Abel said, curled up towards the wall.

Sacha brought his face off Abel’s shoulder just enough to look at Abel in profile on the pillow.  Abel smelled like gin and sex, like all those nights before Sacha had decided to be an idiot and run back to the colonies.  Leaving Abel to keep up appearances and kiss women and smell like red wine and perfume.  

But that was done now. 

“What, princess?” Sacha asked, running his hand down Abel’s warm thigh, moving to get Abel’s ass pressed back against him better.  Kissed the side of Abel’s neck, under his ear where it always caught him by surprise.

“I, um,” Abel said, sucking his lip and staring at something on the wall.  Thinking too hard.  Wanting something. Hopefully something Sacha knew how to give, because he couldn’t stand it when Abel looked at him like there was something he needed but Sacha just didn’t understand and had never learned, like fucking quadratics.  Abel swallowed hard, taking a deep breath to work himself up to something.  “I missed you,” Abel said quietly.

Sacha froze.  

_What are you doing here, Cain?_

He wasn’t ever going to admit he was afraid of anything, especially not to Abel, never admit that he was afraid of that cold black water at the lake, or a couple little words, not anything or anyone.  He could let Abel fuck him so long as they didn’t have to talk about it.  

Everything had been simpler in the military, where he knew what the fuck he was doing, and how to make Abel just do what he was told, and didn’t have to think about anything.  

But things were different here.

He’d waded out into that black water after Abel, and that hadn’t been so bad.  He’d only had to go in up to his knees to make Abel happy, just had to stand there and ignore the creeping chills up his back watching Abel disappear under the water, not knowing if he’d come back up, fragile and too far out of reach for Sacha to protect.  But Abel had come back, every time, even though he didn’t need Sacha, not at the lake, not here, not in Fleet, because even after everything Abel still wanted him for some reason.  

Sacha thought about that, thinking too hard like a navigator, not sure what to say.

Abel sat up then, his hands clumsy as he pushed the sheet off them.  “I should, um, I should go home,” Abel said shakily, his face turned away, trying to keep his voice even.  “You can call when you, when you, if you—“ Abel stuttered, trying to pull out of Sacha’s hands.

Sacha pushed Abel back down.  “Abel.  Stay,” he said, and tried to settle back the way they’d been, so Sacha could lie with his mouth against Abel’s shoulder and not look at him.  But Abel twisted in his grip, looking back at Sacha with his worried look, sucking his lip.  

Sacha cursed himself out for an idiot.  He should never have told Abel he missed him.  He’d meant the sex, but he hadn’t really meant just the sex, and now Abel was looking at him.  Wanting too much like that last night Sacha had gotten spooked and changed his tickets to go back to the colonies instead of following Abel like he’d planned.  A year and a half stuck in that shithole working crappy jobs, trying to get together enough money to undo a stupid fucking mistake, all because he’d been too chickenshit to admit he was scared of a little blond navigator who liked to suck cock.  

Too scared to admit that maybe he needed Abel just as bad as Abel wanted him.  

Sacha ground his teeth.  He wasn’t afraid of anything, especially not this, and he was never going to admit it to Abel even if he was.  

Had to get it over with sooner or later, just like basic.  

He could do this.  

“I know,” he said finally.  Hoped that was enough, hoped Abel wouldn’t laugh at him again.  

But Abel just took slow breaths, not saying anything, stiff and silent and Sacha didn’t know what that meant, didn’t know what he was supposed to say instead, didn’t know what was the right thing to say and not fuck everything up.

“I, um,” Sacha said, sounding as awkward as Abel.  “I missed you too?” Sacha tried.

Abel didn’t say anything.  Just twisted in his arms and kissed him, fisting his hand in Sacha’s hair and pushing his tongue into Sacha’s mouth.  

Sacha wasn’t afraid of anything, especially not this.


	11. Chapter 11

November 11

**Cain**

They got ready at Abel’s place, Abel excited and jittery even though it was just the same veterans’ day shitshow with free booze that Fleet threw every year.  Speeches and music and bullshit, politicians gladhanding for the cameras.

“What?” Abel asked, catching Sacha’s eyes on him as he turned around, fussing his dress uniform straight.  

Sacha shrugged.  “Your ass looks good,” he said, taking a pull from the bottle of vodka and offering it to Abel.  No use going to this thing sober.  Abel blushed and took a dainty sip, the burn of the alcohol making his cheeks redder.  If they had had the time, Sacha would have fucked him then, but there would be time for that later, since Sacha had gotten the whole weekend off babysitting to come back and crash at Abel’s place to fuck and drink for a few days.  

And play house a little.  Sacha had even brought flowers; ragged blue and white things that made Abel blush until Sacha had laughed at him and stuck them in a beer bottle.  Abel blushed too much for romance, and anyway, he’d been on Sacha too fast to bother seducing.  Like Abel had ever needed convincing.  

They took the train over to the shitshow, Abel finally relaxing when a couple other navigators got on with their fighters, a few pairs even touching once most of the civilians cleared out of the train car.  Sacha bumped Abel with his shoulder, but just smirked at Abel’s worried glance and didn’t paw at him like the teams who obviously hadn’t fucked since seeing each other last year.  Time for that later.

Sacha’s buzz from the vodka had mostly worn off by the time they got there, but the free champagne and Abel’s shy smile as he inched closer during the bullshit speeches helped.  Abel even let Sacha put an arm over his shoulders during one of the toasts, _exemplary service_ and _teamwork_ and _blah blah blah_ ; Sacha didn’t hear any of it, distracted by Abel’s smell and his relaxed smile.

But then Abel glanced past Sacha and blanched, shrugging out from under his arm.  Abel drained his champagne glass and handed it to Sacha.  “Get me another.  I’ll be right back,” he said, ducking through the crowd too fast for Sacha to follow where he went.  

Sacha frowned at the two champagne glasses and drained his own, looking like a drunk moron with two empty glasses. 

He’d just found a waiter to hand them off and get another, only to turn around and find Abel’s mother right beside him.  Sneaky and quiet even though she looked delicate, just like Abel.

“You look very nice, Sacha,” Abel’s mother said, smiling and reaching up to straighten his collar.  

Sacha shifted on his feet, uncomfortable and not sure what to say.  Abel had made him sit through a couple of awkward dinners with her at Abel’s place, and once at a place fancy enough to keep Sacha looking over his shoulder the whole time for the cops to come kick him out, but he mostly hadn’t had to make small talk with her.  Just eat and let Abel talk and try not to remind anyone that Abel’s father wasn’t there because Sacha was.

“Um.  Thank you,” was all Sacha could think to say with Abel’s mother brushing lint off his shoulder.  “Ma’am,” Sacha added, keeping an eye over her shoulder for Abel’s asshole father, and tensed when he caught sight of Abel talking to him over by the bar.  

Abel’s mother followed his look.  “Ethan will be fine.  His father just needs some time to come around,” she said.  

It didn’t look fine, Abel and his father standing at an angle to each other not quite facing, their shoulders stiff.  But what the fuck did Sacha know about dealing with a father, or a family.  

Abel’s mother dug in her purse for something, and handed a neatly folded piece of paper to Sacha.  “I saw something in the news you should read.  Ethan’s father doesn’t like it, but Iowa is very nice in the summer.”  Sacha put the paper in his pocket without looking at it, still watching Abel in case something happened.  “My sister Renee lives in Dubuque, and she just loves having big parties.  Ethan’s cousin had her reception there two years ago.  Renee has a lovely big yard and she’d love to meet you after hearing so much.”  

Sacha only half listened, not sure what she was talking about, but tonight would be bad enough with Abel wound up over dealing with his dad without getting him upset that Sacha had been an asshole to his mother too.  So Sacha just drank his champagne too fast and let her talk about flowers and a bakery her sister knew and all the places his parents should visit when they went to Iowa, like there was any reason to go to Iowa, where ever the fuck that was.

Abel and his father walked away from each other with dark faces and stiff shoulders, but both of them angled towards Sacha and Abel’s mother, a fight waiting to happen if they both got there at the same time.  Sacha glanced at Abel’s mother, and at least they both knew enough to get this over with.  

Abel’s mother reached up and patted his cheek.  “It was nice to see you again, Sacha.  Think about Iowa.  You and Ethan look so handsome in your uniforms together and it would be lovely to meet your parents.”  And then she was gone with a smile, heading off Abel’s father.

Sacha scowled and dug out the piece of paper she’d given him.  Froze and stared at it.  Put it away again in case anyone saw it and went to drag Abel somewhere they could talk in private.

 

* * *

 

**Abel**

Cain caught him by the wrist and pulled him out of the main room, into a dark side room, ignoring Ethan’s protests.  It was too dangerous to even kiss, too public and with his parents there, but then Cain pushed him against a wall and dug a piece of paper out of his pocket. 

He unfolded it and shoved it at Ethan.  “What the fuck is this?  Why the fuck did your mother give me this?” Cain demanded.

Ethan looked down at it.  A printed out news article.  Something about Iowa relegalizing same-sex marriage over his father’s protests.  

Ethan winced; he knew exactly why his mother had given it to Cain.  

“Um.  She likes weddings?” he tried.  

Cain grimaced and threw back the rest of his champagne.  Grabbed Ethan by the chin and kissed him, rough, bitter with the taste of champagne, ending with a bite.  “Where the fuck is Dubuque?” Cain demanded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHY IS THIS SO CUTE AND FLUFFY. I blame Hamlet: http://hamletmachine.deviantart.com/art/I-WANTED-TO-TELL-YOU-201134371 They look so haaaaaappy. Presumably if there was a wedding it would be something like this: (need a y-gal acct to view, but it's NSFW worth it) http://www.y-gallery.net/view/711651/; http://www.y-gallery.net/view/705330/; http://www.y-gallery.net/view/733439/ Thank you for reading so far for a wedding joke.


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